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K 



A CHILD'S GUIDE 
TO THE BIBLE 




Christ Blessing Little Children 



Hofmann 



A CHILD'S GUIDE 
TO THE BIBLE 



BY 

GEORGE HODGES 



1 1 



DEAN OF THE EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE* 

MASSACHUSETTS 

ILLUSTRATED 



New York 
THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 

1911 






Copyright 1911, by 

The Baker & Taylor Company 

Published December, 1911 



i i 

i k ■* 



©CI. A 3 03 3h 8 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

The Books of the Bible 3 

Prose and Poetry 10 

Making the Books 15 

'The Bible in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin ... 22 

The Bible in English 31 



THE OLD TESTAMENT 

THE HISTORICAL BOOKS 

I. The Era of the Beginnings 
The Old Testament Triangle 
What Abraham Brought 
From Mesopotamia to Egypt 
From the Nile to Mt. Sinai . 
The Giving of the Law . 
From Mt. Sinai to the Jordan 
The Conquest of the Promised Land 
The Defense of the Promised Land 

II. The Era of the Kings 
The Selection of Saul 
The Exploits of David . 



41 

46 
53 
62 
70 

75 
81 
89 

98 
104 



The Glory of Solomon 114 

The Revolution 119 

Elijah and Elisha 124 

Kings, North and South 133 

The Invasion of the Assyrians 138 

The Invasion of the Chaldeans 142 

III. The Era of the Foreign Rulers 

The Foreign Rulers 149 

The New History . . . .... 156 

THE POETICAL BOOKS' 

The Books of Wisdom 163 

The Book of Psalms and the Book of Songs . . 170 

THE PROPHETICAL BOOKS 

I. Eighth Century 

Amos, Hosea, Micah 179 

Isaiah 186 

II. Seventh Century 

Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk 191 

Jeremiah 196 

777. Sixth Century 

Ezekiel 202 

Obadiah, Lamentations, Haggai, Zechariah . . . 208 

IV. Fifth Century and After 

Malachi, Joel, Jonah 213 

Daniel 218 

vi 



THE NEWi TESTAMENT 



a. 



The Gospels 229 

Ministry of Christ: First Year 237 

Ministry of Christ: Second Year 247 

Ministry of Christ: Third Year 258 

Acts of St. Peter 271 

Acts of St. Paul 279 

Epistles of St. Paul: Missionary Journeys . . . 293 

Epistles of St. Paul: Roman Imprisonment . . 304 

Epistles of St. James, St. Jude, St. Peter, St. John . 310 

The Revelation 319 



vn 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Christ Blessing Little Children, Hofmann . Frontispiece v 

OPPOSITE 
PAGE 

Eebecca at the Well, Murillo ....... 56 y 

Jacob's Ladder, Murillo 58 ^ 

The Judgment of Solomon, Bore 114' 

Matthew, Marke, Luke and John, Jordaens . . . 228 

St. Matthew, Rembrandt 236 V 

The Nativity, Hofmann 238" 

The Prodigal Son, Batoni 264 ^ 

The Descent from the Cross, Rubens .... 268 * 

St Paul at Ephesus, Le Sueur 288 f 



IX 



INTRODUCTION 



THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE 

HpHE word Bible means " the books. " The Bible 
looks like one book, for it is all contained 
within a single pair of covers. But when it is ex- 
amined it is found to be made of sixty-seven books 
bound together. 

Sometimes the Bible is printed in such small 
letters that it will go easily into a coat pocket. 
Sometimes it is printed in such large letters that a 
child of ten would find it almost too heavy to 
carry, and a child of five could not carry it at all. 
But big or little, the Bible is always sixty-seven 
books in one. 

It is as if you were to take sixty-seven books off 
the shelves of a book case and send them to a 
printer and say, " These are to be printed page 
after page, and then bound into one book." The 
printer would say, "Such a book would be too 
large. It would be bigger than a volume of the 
Encyclopaedia; it would be bigger than the 
Unabridged Dictionary. Nobody could handle 



INTRODUCTION 

such a book." But that would depend on the size 
of the sixty-seven books. 

One reason why the Bible books are bound 
together is that some of them are so very small. 
Thus in the middle of the Bible are sixteen books 
of sermons, beginning with Isaiah; and sometimes 
there is only one sermon in the book; and some of 
these sermons are so short that they may easily be 
read aloud, from beginning to end, in less than ten 
minutes. And near the end of the Bible are 
twenty-one books of letters, beginning with Ro- 
mans; a few of these are long, but others are 
hardly more than notes, and do not fill the whole 
of a single printed page. These little writings, by 
themselves, might be lost. They are bound up 
with the others for safe keeping. 

When we say, then, that there are sixty-seven 
books of the Bible, we do not mean that they are all 
good-sized books, such as we have on our shelves, 
for that would make a volume quite too big. 
There are sixty-seven different pieces, long and 
short, each with its own writer, and its own subject 
and its own title. 

Another reason for putting all these together 
between two covers is for convenience. They are 
all concerned with religion. They are about the 



THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE 

same Person, and were written by people of the 
same race. The writers of these sixty-seven books 
were Jews, and they wrote them to tell what God 
had done for their fathers and for them, and what 
God would do for all the people of the earth. 
Taken together, the different writings make a 
single, long, connected history. 

Sometimes fathers and mothers who are good at 
telling stories, tell a long, long story which lasts 
a year, or longer than that. Every week, or every 
day, there is something more to tell. The Bible is 
the longest story in the world, for it took more 
than a thousand years to tell it. One began, and 
another continued, new ones coming forward, year 
after year, to take the places of the earlier writers, 
and new and wonderful things happening, until at 
last the book was ended. Thus, about seven hun- 
dred and fifty years before the birth of Christ, men 
were gathering together and writing down the 
chapters of the first book of the Bible. But the 
stories and the songs which are in that book had 
been in the memory of the people for hundreds 
and hundreds of years, nobody knows how long. 
They had been told and sung thousands and 
thousands of times before they were written. The 



INTRODUCTION 

last book of the Bible was written perhaps a hun- 
dred years after the birth of Christ. 

Not only were these sixty-seven books written 
at very different times, but they were written in 
very different places. The writers of a good many 
of them lived in Jerusalem; but some of them 
lived in Babylon. Part of the Bible was written 
in Asia Minor, at Ephesus; part in Greece, at 
Corinth; part in Italy, at Rome. These writers 
used two very different languages. The Old 
Testament was composed in Hebrew, the New 
Testament in Greek. 

The name Testament, which is thus given to 
the two great divisions of the Bible, means a 
promise. It was God who made the promise, 
speaking in the hearts of good men, and sending 
them to tell their neighbors. The promise was 
that God would be good to us and bless us. 

We are so sure of that today that it seems to us 
as if people must have known it always. But that 
is not so. Even now, there are countries where 
they are not at all sure that God is good, or desires 
our good. They are terribly afraid of God, and 
are all the time offering sacrifices to persuade God 
not to hurt them. This is the idea of God which 
they get from thunder and lightning, from 

6 



THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE 

storms and floods and fires and pestilences. It 
is only in the Bible that we are told, over and over 
again, and in spite of all the ills of life, that God 
cares for us and loves us, and does always what is 
right and best. 

In the Old Testament, this assurance of God's 
goodness is made only to the Jews. That is 
because the Jews were best able to understand it. 

When a man of science wishes to say something 
new and important about astronomy or geology, 
he does not say it to the men who are working in 
a mill, or to the boys and girls who are studying in 
a public school. The time will come, if the dis- 
covery is really important, when everybody will 
know about it. But the first report is made to 
men of science who can understand it. Then these 
men may go and tell about it in simpler words to 
other people. It was for this reason that God 
spoke about religion to the Jews, because they 
knew more about religion than any other people in 
the world. He made the Greeks the teachers of 
the world in art and philosophy, because they were 
the best philosophers and art sts. He made the 
Latins the teachers of the world in law, because 
they were the best lawyers. But he appointed the 
Jews to teach the world religion. 



INTRODUCTION 

The lessons which the Jews themselves learned 
that they might teach them to their neighbors, are 
in the Old Testament. They begin with the very 
alphabet of religion and go on little by little, into 
the higher grades. Thus they learned that God is, 
but they thought that God came down into the 
Garden of T Eden and walked about under the 
trees. Afterwards they realized that "no man 
hath seen God at any time." And they learned 
that God is merciful, but they thought that one 
time when God was about to destroy the people 
of Israel, Moses rebuked Him so that He changed 
His mind. Afterwards, they came to know that 
God is not only wiser than any man, — so that not 
even Moses could teach Him, — but that He is 
more merciful than any man. The Bible, then, is 
an account of how the Jews, under the instruction 
of God, learned what to believe and what to do. 
It describes how they went to school to God. 
There were other schools, for God was teaching 
every nation, as He is still. But of all the schools, 
this was the best. 

In the New Testament, the great lessons go on. 
But there are two differences. One is that in the 
Old Testament the teachers who teach the lessons 
of God are patriarchs and poets and prophets; 

8 



THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE 

but in the New Testament the supreme teacher is 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The other is that 
in the New Testament all the lessons are taught 
to the Jews; but in the New Testament the 
teachers go out to teach all nations. 



9 



PROSE AND POETRY 

'"pHE sixty-seven books which are bound to- 
gether to make the Bible are some of them 
in prose and some in poetry. 

Commonly, poetry and prose look different. 
Take, for example, a volume of Longfellow. Here 
are poems, long and short; some in rhyme, like 
"Paul Revere's Ride," some without rhyme, like 
the "Courtship of Miles Standish"; but every 
page looking unlike any page of prose. In the 
Bible, the difference between prose and poetry is 
not so plain, for here the poetry has been made 

over into prose. 

It is like what Mr. Church has done in his three 
familiar translations of great classics for English 
and American children. The Iliad and the 
Odyssey, in the Greek in which they were written 
by Homer, and the Aeneid, in the Latin in which 
it was written by Virgil, are in the form of poetry, 
line after line, like our poems. But Mr. Church 
gave them to us in prose. Indeed, it is impossible 

to take the poetry of one language and turn it into 

10 



PROSE AND POETRY 

the same poetry in another language. For poetry, 
as you see at once, depends not only on the thoughts 
but on the words. When the words are changed, 
the poetical form is changed. It is true that Mr. 
Church, in retelling those old poems of Homer and 
Virgil, made other changes in order to make the 
books more interesting to boys and girls. But 
when Professor Palmer translated the Odyssey, 
he kept every thought just as it was in Greek, only 
he did not try to make the Greek verses into 
English verses. 

That is what was done when the Bible books 
called Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and 
Solomon's Song were brought over into English 
out of Hebrew. In some English Bibles, they are 
printed in lines somewhat like poetry, but in most 
Bibles they look like prose. 

The prose books, of which the greater part of 
the Bible is composed, are of two kinds. There are 
books whose purpose is to tell what men have 
believed and done in the past ; and there are books 
whose purpose is to tell what men ought to believe 
and to do in the present. 

The first half of the Old Testament and the 

first half of the New are made up of the writings 

which describe what has been believed and done 

11 



INTRODUCTION 

by the men of the old time. These are history 

books. 

In the Old Testament, they begin with Genesis, 
and come on, book after book, to the end of Second 
Kings; telling the story of the beginnings of the 
world and of the Hebrews, how Abraham came out 
of Mesopotamia and how Moses brought the 
people out of Egypt, how they conquered the land 
of Canaan and settled there, and grew to be a 
strong nation, how one part of the nation quar- 
relled with the other part, so that they divided and 
became two nations, and finally how stronger 
peoples from the east, Assyrians and Chaldeans, 
came and destroyed first one nation and then the 
other, and carried them both off into exile. Then 
the history begins over again with First Chronicles, 
the first word of which is "Adam," and comes 
down over the same ground as before, in the earlier 
part rapidly, telling the same story, and continues, 
in Ezra and Nehemiah, the record of the Hebrews, 
how they came back from their exile when both 
the Assyrians and the Chaldeans were conquered 
by the Persians, and rebuilt the city of Jerusalem 
and the temple in the midst of it. 

In the New Testament, the history books begin 

with Matthew and give four different accounts of 

12 



PROSE AND POETRY 

the life of Christ, and then describe the beginning 
of the Christian Church, especially in the min- 
istry of St. Peter and in the ministry of St. Paul. 

The last half of the Old Testament, — after the 
books of poetry in the middle — and the last half 
of the New are made up of writings which tell 
people what they ought to believe and do. One 
way in which to give this good advice is to speak 
to them face to face, either in a talk in private, or 
in a sermon in public. The Old Testament books 
of advice are mostly sermons. The men who 
preached these sermons were called prophets, and 
they did much more than quietly advise men. 
They denounced their sins; they told them in the 
plainest kind of language that they were bringing 
upon themselves the displeasure of God, and that 
unless they changed their ways they would be 
punished. Many of the prophets preached in the 
days when the Assyrians and Chaldeans were 
coming with their invading armies, and they said 
that the reason for these distresses was the wicked- 
ness of the people. 

Another way in which to tell people what they 
should believe and do is to write to them. The 
New Testament books of advice are mostly letters. 
St. Paul wrote most of these letters, but other good 

13 



INTRODUCTION 

men wrote some others. They begin with the 
address of the persons to whom they are written, 
and at the end the writer asks to be remembered 
to various friends. They answer questions, like our 
letters. All of them are about religion, and some of 
them sound more like sermons than letters, but 
they were written, like our letters, to persons at a 
distance, and were given" to the postman, or to 
some travelling friend to carry. 



14 



MAKING THE BOOKS 

QNE way to make a book is to take a pen and ink, 
and write it. Most books are made that way. 
The writer learns a great deal, and thinks a great 
deal, and then puts it all down, page after page, in 
a book. But another way to make a book is to 
take a pair of scissors and a pot of paste, and select 
good things from many books and put them to- 
gether. 

Many books of poetry are made in this second 
way. For instance, hymn books. Nobody writes 
a hymn book. What is done is to gather together 
a number of hymns which were written at very 
different times, by different persons, sometimes in 
different countries. Thus in one book there may 
be a hymn which was first written in Greek, in the 
fourth century, and is still sung in that language in 
Greece; and another which was first written in 
Latin, in the twelfth century, and is still sung in 
that language in Italy; and another which was 
written in this country a few years ago, to be sung 
at the revival meetings conducted by Mr. Moody. 

15 



INTRODUCTION 

The maker of a hymn book selects the religious 
poetry which he thinks is best suited to be sung in 
church. Sometimes the name of the writer of each 
hymn is printed at the end of the hymn, but some- 
times not. People easily forget who wrote any of 
the hymns. The authors are not of any particular 
interest to them. Few persons remember who 
wrote even the most familiar hymns, like "Rock 
of Ages," or " Nearer, my God, to Thee." By-and- 
by, somebody else takes the old hymn book, leaves 
out some hymns, adds many others, and thus 
makes a new book. Year by year, such books 

grow. 

Thus, in the Bible, the Book of Psalms grew. 
Some psalms have the name of the writer, or of 
the supposed writer, printed at the top. Thus 
many psalms are said to have been written by 
David, one by Moses. Sometimes a psalm is dated, 
like the one-hundred-and-thirty-seventh. This be- 
gins, "By the rivers of Babylon." That shows that 
it was written hundreds of years after the days of 
David, when the Hebrews were in exile in Baby- 
lon. Thus century by century the psalm book 
grew. The names of the writers of most of the 
psalms are altogether forgotten. The book was 
made by gathering together pieces of religious 

16 



MAKING THE BOOKS 

poetry written at different times, in different 
places, and by different people. The Book of 
Proverbs was composed in the same way. 

Books of history are made by this process of col- 
lection. The historian, unless he is describing what 
he has seen with his own eyes, and heard with his 
own ears, prepares to write his history by read- 
ing old records. He tries to find accounts of 
battles written by men who were actually in the 
battles, and descriptions of heroes written by men 
who actually knew them. He gathers together 
old laws. He copies down pages from old books. 
And all these he brings into his history. Some- 
times, the maker of a book of history studies 
these old writings and tells us in his own words 
what they mean. Sometimes he takes the writ- 
ings and puts them in his book in the old words, 
and leaves us to find out the meaning, as best we 
may. Sometimes, finding two different accounts 
of the same event, he gives us both of them, 
and leaves us to compare them. Thus history 
books, like hymn books, are not written by one 
man. The writer makes use of the writings of 
many men. 

Thus it was that the history books of the Bible 
were made. Sometimes the Bible historian tells 

17 



INTRODUCTION 

us in what older books he found the facts which he 
reports. He refers, for example, to the Book of 
the Kings of Judah and Israel (II Chronicles 
25:26), or to the Book of Jasher (II Samuel 
1:18). Out of one book he takes an account of a 
war, out of another he copies an old song. Some- 
times, when he found two forms of the same story, 
either in different books, or in the memory of dif- 
ferent people, he put in both. Thus you see at 
once that the account of the creation of the world 
is given in one form in the first chapter of Genesis, 
and in another form in the second chapter. In 
the first chapter, at the beginning of all things is a 
great deep; in the second chapter, at the beginning 
is a great desert. Also, in the first chapter man is 
made after the animals; in the second chapter, 

before the animals. 

These differences are not of any importance, be- 
cause the Bible is not a book of geology, but a 
book of theology. Geology is an account of the 
earth, its rocks and hills. Theology is an account 
of God, His will, His love, and His dealings with 
men. The purpose of the Bible is to make us 
"wise unto salvation." If we wish to be wise as 
to science or history, we go to other books. 

But the differences, while they are not impor- 

18 



MAKING THE BOOKS 

tant, are of great interest because they show us the 
Bible in the making. We see the actual pieces 
which the historian had in his hand. Instead of 
studying the two accounts, and deciding between 
them himself, taking one and leaving out the 
other, he gave us both, side by side. 

Thus we see that the history books of the Bible 
were made in somewhat the same manner as they 
built the church at Jamestown. The old church at 
Jamestown having fallen into ruins, and nothing 
being left of it except the tower, a new church was 
built on the same spot in memory of the landing of 
the English settlers in 1607. But they did not use 
new brick. On the ground, and under the ground, 
they found old brick, some of which had once 
formed part of the wall of the old church, and these 
they built into the new building. 

The differences in the accounts given of the 
same event show that the historian was using ma- 
terials which were already very old. Imagine, for 
instance, a tribe of people emigrating into a new 
country. They have their flocks and herds with 
them, and their encampment, whenever they stop 
to rest, extends over a great space of plain and 
forest. Some are before, some are behind. Then 
something happens ; those who are before push on 

19 



INTRODUCTION 

over a range of hills, and suddenly there is a 
heavy storm of snow, and those who are behind 
stay back. They go into winter quarters, with the 
high hills between them. In the spring, they like 
the country and settle where they are, separated 
by the mountains. And they become separate- 
nations. Now these separate nations have at 
first the same traditions and memories; they re- 
member the same ancestors and heroes and his- 
tory; they have the same accounts of the past. 
But year after year, as they live apart, little dif- 
ferences will arise in these accounts. Sometimes 
names will be changed, sometimes numbers will be 
less here and greater there. For that is human 
nature. No two persons will tell the same story 
in just the same way. Then suppose that after a 
long time the two nations become one again. 
Suppose that one nation is driven by enemies over 
the hills, and joins the other nation. And suppose 
that somebody writes a history of the old days 
when the two nations were one before, and of the 
ancestors and heroes which they have in common. 
He will find two forms of stories. Sometimes he 
may combine the two, sometimes he may keep 
them both with all their differences. 

This, in a way, is what happened to the accounts 

20 



MAKING THE BOOKS 

of the ancient world which appear at the oeginning 
of the Bible. Except that the event which sep- 
arated the Hebrews into two nations was not a 
snowstorm, but a war. They fought together and 
then lived apart. Thus they told the old stories 
in gradually differing ways; in one form in the 
south, in the nation of Judah; in another form in 
the north, in the nation of Israel. Long afterwards 
the two forms were set down side by side, in the 
book of Genesis and in other books of Bible history. 
Thus the Bible books were made; some of them 
written straight along by the writer out of his own 
mind and heart, as God helped him; some of them 
collected together out of materials already very 
old. 



21 



THE BIBLE IN HEBREW. GREEK AND 

LATIN 

1. The Hebrew Bible.— Three interpretations. 

(4) The Targum. — A free translation out of 
Hebrew into Aramaic, the language of 
the people after the Exile. 

(2) The Talmud.— A commentary. 

(3) The Massorah. — The Bible not with con- 

sonants only, but for the first time adding 
vowels. 

2. The Greek Bible : The Septuagint (begun third 

century B. C.) — Three ancient copies. 

(1) Codex Alexandrinus, in British Museum 

written in fifth century A. D. 

(2) Codex Vaticanus, in Vatican Library, 

Rome. Written in fourth century. 

(3) Codex Sinaiticus, in Imperial Library, St. 

Petersburg. Written in fourth century. 

3. The Latin Bible: The Vulgate (fourth century 

A. D.) 

^HE Bible was written in three languages which 
are no longer anywhere spoken. Once they 
were as easy and familiar as our own language 
is to us, and were spoken by babies who were 
learning to walk and talk. But gradually the 
times, changed, and the common speech of men 

22 



THE BIBLE IN HEBREW 

changed with them. Thus it became necessary 
to translate the Bible. It had to be taken over 
out of these ancient languages into the living 
words of living men. 

When the Bible was written, the English lan- 
guage did not exist. Not an Englishman had as 
yet set foot in England. The English lived in the 
middle part of the peninsula which we now call 
Denmark, and were a wild race of warriors on the 
land and pirates on the sea. All quiet and civ- 
ilized people were as afraid of them as the settlers 
of America were afraid of Indians. Some of the 
words which they used have come down from them 
to us. They said " ham," meaning "home"; and 
"tun," meaning "town." Most of our days of the 
week are called for their gods: thus Wednesday 
is the day of Woden, their god of war; and 
Thursday is the day of Thor, their god of storm; 
and Friday is the day of Frea, their god of peace. 
Our festival of Easter is named from Eostre, their 
goddess of the spring. But the men who wrote the 
Bible had never in their lives heard any of these 
words, and did not know that such a race of people 
as the English lived on the face of the earth. When 
the English appeared in Britain, and began the 
invasion which changed its name to England, the 

23 



INTRODUCTION 

last book of the Bible had been ended almost four 
hundred years. 

So the books of the Bible were written in other 

languages than ours. 

The Old Testament was written, for the most 
part, in Hebrew. One difference between Hebrew 
and English is that in reading a Hebrew book one 
begins at what we call the end; the last page, as it 
seems to us, is the first page. Also, one reads from 
right to left, instead of reading, as we do, from left 
to right ; and every word is made in that same way, 

as if we were to write the name Hebrew this 

way: werbeH. That has a strange look even in 
English letters, but the Hebrew itself looks 
stranger still, because even the letters are different. 
Here, for example, are the first two verses of the 
book of Genesis in Hebrew: 

nf-am arm «yi D W *$ atf* *b «■£*& 

eSfca orp ninn W^ TO *&l ^ TO 

:«bo jpht narpj? 

There was a time when all the people who lived 
in the land of the Jews used this Hebrew language, 
and the Bible was written in it, just as our books 
are made in English. But the great wars, which 
for a time almost destroyed the Hebrew nation, 



THE BIBLE IN HEBREW 

drove many of the Jews out of Palestine into 
Egypt. Large numbers of them settled in Alex- 
andria. Now, Alexandria, as the name shows, was 
a Greek city. It was founded by Alexander, the 
Greek conqueror of Egypt. And in Alexandria 
the common language was Greek. The Jews 
learned it. They liked it better than Hebrew, and 
their children spoke it as their native tongue. 
Thus it came about that the Old Testament books, 
when they were read at the time of divine service, 
were in a language which the congregation could 
no longer understand. The custom was to have 
men who knew both languages explain to the 
hearers what the Hebrew reading meant, but this 
was not a satisfactory arrangement. So the Jews of 
Alexandria desired to have the Bible in Greek. 

Many other Jews felt the same way, for they 
went not only into Egypt but into Asia Minor, 
buying and selling, and settled in aU the busy 
towns; and everywhere the speech which every- 
body understood was Greek. Thus the Jews de- 
sired a Greek Bible not only for their own use but 
that they might show it to their neighbors, and 
let them see what their sacred books really said. 
Thus it came about that about two hundred and 
fifty years before the birth of Christ the work was 

25 



INTRODUCTION 

begun of translating the Hebrew Bible into Greek. 
Long after, when the Greek Bible had come to be 
held as sacred as the Hebrew, and almost all of the 
circumstances of the translation had been for- 
gotten, they used to tell a remarkable story about 

They said that King Ptolemy of Egypt wished 
to have a copy of the Bible for the great library 
which he was collecting at Alexandria. So he sent 
to Jerusalem to get one. His ambassadors came m 
state to the high priest in the temple, bringing 
splendid gifts, and when they returned seventy- 
two men went with them, six from each of the 
twelve tribes of Israel. They were all wise men, 
who knew Greek as well as Hebrew, and every one 
carried in one hand a writer's inkhorn and a 
bundle of pens, and in the other hand a box in 
which was the Old Testament in Hebrew, each 
book written on a separate roll. The seventy-two 
were graciously received by the King of Egypt, 
who gave them a royal banquet; and the next 
morning they set to work. Seventy-two rooms 
were provided for the seventy-two translators, and 
there they labored for seventy-two days. In the 
afternoon of the seventy-second day all of the 
seventy-two doors opened at the same moment, 

Oft 



THE BIBLE IN HEBREW 

and out came the translators, each with his trans- 
lation under his arm. And when the translations 
were compared, they were all alike, without the 
difference of a single word! 

It did not happen quite that way. But the 
story gave a name to the Greek Old Testament, 
which is called the Septuagint, meaning the Sev- 
enty. It is true that the translation was begun in 
the reign of the Ptolemy who lived in the two hun- 
dred and fiftieth year before Christ; but at that 
time some of the Old Testament books were not 
written, others had been begun but were not com- 
pleted. The work of changing the Hebrew into 
Greek took longer than seventy-two days, or even 
seventy-two years. It was probably finished about 
a hundred and fifty years before Christ. 

The Septuagint was the first book of any con- 
siderable length ever translated from one language 
to another. It came at once into general use. In 
the time of our Lord it was used even in Palestine. 
The early Christians read the Old Testament 
translated into Greek as we read the Old Testa- 
ment translated into English. Almost all of the 
Old Testament passages in the New Testament are 
taken from the Septuagint translation. 

The New Testament was written in Greek. 

27 



INTRODUCTION 

Even when St. Paul wrote to the Romans, he wrote 
in Greek. This language, as you know, begins its 
books with the page next to the left hand cover, 
as we do; and is read from left to right like 
English; but its letters, while not so strange as the 
Hebrew, are still quite different from ours. Here, 
for example, are the first two verses of the gospel 
of St. Mark in Greek. 

I i *APXH tou cfiaweXt'ou 'Itjcroy XptoroG, otou tou ecou 1 * 
2. 6s 2 ve'vpaTrrai * rots irpo<MTcus, 8 «1W ^ 4 ^ 
rbv S.yye\6v jiou *po irpocr^ou <roo, os KaTaaKeuAaet t^v m* 

Then the New Testament was added to the Old, 
and the whole Bible was in Greek. 

For a long time, Greek was the common lan- 
guage of civilized people. Almost everybody who 
could read at all, could read Greek. But the 
rulers of the world were Romans, and the Roman 
language was Latin. Gradually, in the western 
part of the Roman Empire, Latin took the place of 
Greek. Greek continued to be used in the east. 
But the rest desired to have the Bible in their 

own language. 

The Latin language is somewhat known today, 
even to those who cannot read it, partly because 
we use the Latin letters, and partly because a 
great many of our words are taken over, with little 

28 



THE BIBLE IN LATIN 

change, from the Latin. Thus the thirteenth verse 
of the fifth chapter of the Revelation, which we 
read, "And every creature which is in Heaven, 
and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are 
in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, 
Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be 
unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto 
the Lamb for ever and ever," in the Latin reads 
thus: 

Et omnem creaturam, quae in coelo est, et 
super terram, et sub terra, et quae sunt in 
mari, et quae in eo, omnes audivi dicentes, 
sedenti in throno, et agno, benedictio et 
honor, et gloria et potetestas in saecula sae- 
culorum. 

You see how our words "creature," and "throne," 
and "benediction," and "honor," and "glory" 
are Latin words. 

The demand for a Latin Bible increased, and 
various translations were made. At last, about 
four hundred years after Christ, a great scholar 
made a Latin translation of the whole Bible. It 
was so good that it took the place of all the others, 
and came to be called the Vulgate, meaning the 
Bible in common use. The name of this scholar 
was Jerome. By that time, few people in western 

29 



INTRODUCTION 

Europe could read Greek, and hardly anybody 
could read even a sentence of Hebrew. Everybody 
knew one Hebrew word, which we all use today, 
the word Amen; but that was as far as their ac- 
quaintance went. Jerome learned Hebrew, he 
was a master of Greek, and Latin was his native 
tongue. So the bishop of Rome asked him, as the 
best scholar of his time, to translate the Bible into 
Latin. He spent fourteen years at this work, 
living in Bethlehem. At the end, there was the 
whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, all in 

Latin. 
The Greek translation, the Septuagint, took the 

place of the Hebrew Bible in the east, and is read 
today in all the churches of that part of the 
country, in Greece and in Russia. The Latin 
translation, the Vulgate, became the Bible of the 
west, and is still read in the service of all Roman 
Catholic churches. All educated persons, no 
matter what European country they lived in, 
understood Latin. They talked it, as we talk 
English. 



30 



THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH 

1. In the fourteenth century. — Wycliffe's Bible, 1380. 

2. In the sixteenth century (and beginning of seven- 

teenth) 

1. Three versions, each bearing a translator's name, 

culminating in Great Bible. 

(1) Tyndale's, 1525-1535. 

(2) Coverdale's, 1535. 

(3) Matthew's = Tyndale's + Coverdale's. 

(4) The Great Bible, 1539. 

2. Three versions, each bearing a party name, cul- 

minating in King James' Bible. 

(1) Genevan (Puritan) 1560. 

(2) Bishops' (Anglican) 1568. 

(3) Douai (Roman) 1582. 

(4) King James' Version, 1611. 

3. In the nineteenth century. — Revised Version, 

1881-1885. 

CO the Bible was translated out of Hebrew into 
Greek for the eastern Christians who spoke 
Greek, and out of Hebrew and Greek into Latin 
for the western Christians who spoke Latin. But 
there appeared other people, with other languages. 
The river Rhine and the river Danube, rising 
not far apart, draw a line across the map of Europe. 

31 



INTRODUCTION 

North of these rivers lived the Goths, and their 
cousins the Angles and Saxons, who became the 
English, and other related tribes. They spoke 
neither Hebrew nor Greek nor Latin, but had a 
language which was somewhat like German. It 
resembled German as the English of a child of 
eighteen months resembles the English of a youth 
of eighteen years. 

These northern tribes kept coming down across 
the two rivers to attack the civilized people, who 
below the Rhine spoke Latin, and below the 
Danube, Greek. And in the peaceful intervals 
between these wars, Christian missionaries taught 
these wild people the Christian religion. 

The most famous of these missionaries was 
named TJlfilas. He was a Goth who had learned 
Greek and Latin. He wished to have his people 
know the Bible, and there see what kind of honest 
and friendly lives God would have men live. But 
he saw that the Bible, in order to do any good to 
any large number of his people, must be read to 
them in their own language. Accordingly he him- 
self undertook to translate it. That was before 
the making of the Vulgate. Jerome was then a 
boy in school. A part of the New Testament, as 
TJlfilas translated it, is still preserved in Sweden, at 

32 



THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH 

Upsala, written in letters of silver on pages of 
purple vellum. One can see in it the German lan- 
guage, and even the English, in their beginnings; 
like a child, as I said, learning to speak. Thus the 
first two words of the Lord's Prayer, which in 
German are Vater unser, in the Gothic of Ulfilas 
are Atta unsar; and where we say "thy name," 
he said namo thein. 

Still the Latin Bible continued to be read 
everywhere in Europe. The time came when 
almost everybody in France spoke French, and al- 
most everybody in Germany spoke German, and 
almost everybody in England spoke English, and 
Latin was understood only by ministers and lawyers 
and teachers and other exceptionally educated per- 
sons. Many of these people wished to have the 
Bible in their own language, but there was a feeling 
among the learned that it would be irreverent to 
put the sacred writings into such common words. 
The Bible belonged, they said, to Hebrew and 
Greek and Latin, to the ancient languages in which 
the inscription on the cross had been written by 
Pontius Pilate, and not to new, undignified and 
vulgar tongues, like German or French or English. 
And the truth is that these languages not only 
seemed crude and queer to educated persons at 

33 



INTRODUCTION 

that time, but they seem quite as queer to us. 
Today, only scholars, and they with much diffi- 
culty, can read them in their old forms. To trans- 
late the Bible into such strange and awkward 
speech was like translating it today into the 
grammar and spelling of people who have never 

been to school. 

But the common languages were improving, and, 
anyhow, there were the common people needing 
the Bible. More and more, the souls of earnest 
men were moved to give it to them in words which 
they could understand. At last, in England, in the 
fourteenth century, John Wycliffe undertook to do 
it. Wycliffe was a professor in the University of 
Oxford, and the minister of a parish in the village 
of Lutterworth. He was a learned man who was 
deeply interested in the simple people. He was 
deeply interested also in the politics and in the 
religion of his time, and he thought that they both 
needed to be improved. He saw that they were 
quite different from the religion and the politics 
of the Bible. These differences which were plain 
to him he desired to make plain to all the people 
by making it possible for them to read the Bible 
for themselves. So, out of Latin into English, he 
and his friends translated the whole Bible. Copies 

34 



THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH 

of WyclifiVs Bible, or of portions of it, laboriously 
made with pen and ink — for this was before 
printing was invented — were handed about among 
the people. They read it with the eager interest of 
those who have at last come into possession of a 
great secret which they have heard of all their 
lives. Here was the sacred book, from which the 
minister read in church, and out of which he took 
his texts. Now any man might read it, and judge 
for himself whether that which he was taught was 
right, or not. 

Not only, however, was WyclifiVs Bible made 
before the invention of printing, but the English 
of WyclifiVs time was not quite the English which 
we speak. The language had improved much, but 
it had not come into settled form. For example, 
in the place where our Bible says, "They were 
afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth," 
WyclifiVs Bible says, "Thei dredden, and bowiden 
her semblaunt into erthe." > 

But those differences of which I spoke, between 
the life described in the Bible and the life lived by 
kings and nobles, and even by ministers, increased 
rather than diminished. And wars began to be 
fought between those who wished to have things 
changed and those who wished to have them con- 

35 



INTRODUCTION 

tinue as they were. At last, in the sixteenth 
century, in Germany, Martin Luther, who was the 
leader of those who were on the side of change, 
translated the Bible into German. It was pretty 
hard, Luther said, to get the Hebrew prophets to 
speak German ; but they did it, both prophets and 
apostles. They spoke such good German, by the 
aid of Luther, that it became the German language 
at its best. All German books, since that, have 
been written in the German of Luther's Bible. 

A few years later, Tindale and Coverdale per- 
suaded the prophets and apostles to speak English. 
Thus the English Bible which we speak today 
came into existence. 

William Tindale translated the New Testament, 
and the historical books of the Old Testament. 
He said, "I wish that (the Scriptures) were trans- 
lated into all languages of all people. I wish that 
the husbandman may sing parts of them at 
his plough, that the weaver may warble them 
at his shuttle, that the traveller may with their 
narratives beguile the weariness of the way." 

But Tindale, like Wycliffe and Luther, was of 
the party of those who wished to change the church. 
He believed that the men of the Bible hated the 
customs and beliefs of his time as stoutly as he 

36 



THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH 

did. He wished them to speak to the people and 
say so. He intended his Bible to be a sword in that 
fight. Naturally, the men who did not agree with 
him, whom he was attacking, did their best to 
take his sword away from him. In this, they did 
not succeed. But they finally seized Tindale, and 
fastened him to a stake and burned him to death. 
Thus he suffered and died for giving us the great 
gift of the English Bible. 

Miles Coverdale, who followed him in his work, 
translated those parts of the Bible which Tindale 
had not undertaken; that is, the second half of 
the Old Testament, from Job to Malachi. And he 
made some changes in Tindale's version. The re- 
sult was the great Bible of 1539. The times had 
changed since the martyrdom of Tindale, and this 
Bible, the work of Tindale and Coverdale together, 
was published under royal approval, and ordered 
to be set up, for the reading of the people, in all the 
churches. 

Thus the Bible was brought into our own lan- 
guage. The translation has been revised a number 
of times; especially in 1611, when the revision was 
called the King James' Bible; and again in 1881 
and 1885 when scholars made what is called the 
Revised Version. But it is still in substance as 

37 



INTRODUCTION 

Tindale and Coverdale made it. The Psalms, as 
they are printed in the Prayer book, are still in 
Coverdale's words, just as he translated them. In 
the King James' Bible, the Lord's Prayer in St. 
Matthew has the words " debts," and in St. Luke 
the word "sins." When we say, " forgive us our 
trespasses," we use the words which stood in 
Tindale's Bible in 1525, almost a hundred years 
before the Bible of King James. 



38 



THE OLD TESTAMENT 



THE HISTORICAL BOOKS 



THE OLD TESTAMENT TRIANGLE 

IX/'E are now almost ready to enter into the 
Bible itself. We need, however, before 
we begin our study, to get some clear idea of 
the "lay of the land." 

It is plain, in the first place, that the events 
which are described in the Old Testament took 
place in Asia and Africa. Nobody who comes into 
these pages lived in Europe. There is one clear 
mention of Greece, there are some references to 
islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and it is possible 
that the Tarshish for which Jonah set sail was 
some place in Spain. But the scenes of the Old 
Testament are in Asia and Africa, and more in 
Asia than in Africa. As for America, nobody in 
Europe, Asia or Africa had ever heard that there 
was any such place. 

Now the two vast continents of Asia and Africa 
touch, as you know, at one point; though even 
there, since the Suez canal was cut through, they 
no longer actually touch. The only part of Africa 
which comes clearly into view in the Old Testa- 

41 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

ment is the corner which is nearest Asia. And the 
only part of Asia which appears clearly is the 
corner which is nearest Africa. 

Looking at these two corners within which all of 
the Old Testament history took place, we may 
observe a great triangle. One side begins at the 
Red Sea, near the mouths of the Nile, and comes 
up north-east along the shore of the Mediterranean 
to the sources of two great rivers, the Tigris and 
the Euphrates. Another side begins there, and 
comes down following those rivers in their course 
south-east till they empty into the Persian Gulf. 
The third side runs from the Persian Gulf, across 
the desert of Arabia, to the Red Sea. Most of the 
nations of whom we read in the Old Testament 
lived on the sides of this triangle. 

Thus at the south-west corner, by the mouths 
of the Nile, lived the Egyptians; and at the south- 
east corner, by the mouths of the Tigris and 
Euphrates, lived the Chaldeans. During the 
greater part of Old Testament history these were 
the two supreme nations of the world. They were 
in their day what Greece and Rome later became, 
the conquerors of the kingdoms of the earth; 
except that the Egyptians and Chaldeans lived 
on the banks of rivers, while the Greeks and 



THE OLD TESTAMENT TRIANGLE 

Romans who followed them lived on peninsulas 
extending into the Mediterranean Sea. It was not 
till after the days of the Greeks and Romans that 
the vast oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific, be- 
came sailing places for the navies of new nations 
in a new age of the world. 

North of Egypt, along the western side of the 
triangle, was Palestine, and north of Palestine was 
Syria. Beside Syria, at the point of the triangle, 
was Mesopotamia. The name means "Between- 
the-Rivers," that is between the Euphrates and 
the Tigris. South of Mesopotamia, coming down 
along the eastern side, was Assyria, whose capital 
was Nineveh, and south of Assyria was Ghaldea, 
whose capital was Babylon. The base line x)f the 
triangle crossed the long desert, where only wander- 
ing tribes had their habitation, but from which, in 
the far past, most of the peoples of the triangle had 
come. 

In consequence of this desert, almost all com- 
munication between Egypt and Chaldea whether 
for war or for trade, was up one side of the triangle 
and down the other. And you see that, whichever 
way they went, the road ran through Palestine. 
Thus it was that Palestine, long before the Jews 
conquered it and settled there, felt the influence, 

43 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

on one side of Egypt, and on the other side, of 
Chaldea. 

One time, when the army of Israel fought 
against Jericho and took it, a soldier found among 
the treasures of a house whose inhabitants had 
fled, a " goodly Babylonish garment," and took 
it for his own. This garment, shining with color 
and rich with embroidery, had come from the 
eastern side of the Old Testament triangle. Per- 
haps some wandering merchants from Babylon, 
riding on camels and bringing precious things for 
sale, had come down the western side as far as 
Jericho, and there had found a purchaser. 

And other things, much more important than 
the fine clothes of Babylon, were brought over the 
same long roads. One time, Jacob with Rachel 
his wife and many servants, and many flocks and 
herds, made the same journey. They started 
from Mesopotamia. Over they came, across the 
Euphrates, and down beside the Jordan. And 
Rachel carried with her certain images of gods. 
These were what we call idols. People had such 
images to look at when they said their prayers. 
So Joshua said, long after, to the people of 
Israel, "Your father dwelt of old time beyond the 
river, and they served other gods." These were 

44 



THE OLD TESTAMENT TRIANGLE 

such gods as were worshipped in Assyria and 
Chaldea. 

Thus not only Babylonish clothes but Baby- 
onish idols were carried up one side of the triangle, 
land down the other. The knowledge of Babylon 
the laws of Babylon, the religion of Babylon, came 
into Palestine. Not only did the Hebrews find 
these influences in the country when they settled 
in it, but the Hebrews themselves came from a 
land all of whose customs were of the Babylonish 
kind. Some of these customs and ideas they did 
not like, and left behind, but others they brought 
with them. 



45 



WHAT ABRAHAM BROUGHT 

Genesis 1-11. 

1. The Creation. 

(1) First account 1:1-2:3. 

(2) Second account 2:4-25. 

2. The Fall 3. 

3. The Killing of Cain 4:1-15. 

4. The Flood 6-9. 

5. The Tower of Babel 11:1-9. 

^THE best of all the gifts which the country by 
the Euphrates made to the country by the 
Mediterranean was a man, a great and good man, 
named Abraham. 

He was born and brought up near the peak of 
the Old Testament triangle, in Mesopotamia. 
There his father and his grandfather and his ances- 
tors had lived for many generations. There he 
went to school, and learned the knowledge of the 
place and time; and there he stayed till he was a 
grown man. Thus when he crossed the Euphrates 
and became the first Hebrew— for the name He- 
brew means "the-man-who-crossed"— he brought 
a great store of thought and experience. He knew 

46 



WHAT ABRAHAM BROUGHT 

the ideas of the wisest men about God and the 
world and man. 

It was as if the wisest man in our town were to go 
to some wild place in South America. He would 
carry his most valuable possessions not in his 
trunk but in his head. They would be his know- 
ledge of the earth and of the stars, of science, of 
history, of law and government, and, most impor- 
tant of all, his knowledge of the nature and the will 
of God. 

Thus came Abraham, bringing the knowledge 
and belief, the science and the religion, of the east, 
having in his mind what his parents had taught 
him concerning the making of the world, and the 
beginning of the life of man, and the origin of sin 
and pain. 

Fortunately for us, some of these ideas were in 
the form of stories. The great difference between 
a story and a history is not that more exciting 
things happen in the stories than in the histories, 
for that is not always so; nor that the people in 
the histories are real, while in the stories they are 
only imaginary, for the heroes of some of the best 
stories have been real people; still less is the dif- 
ference that histories are true and stories are not 
true, for often the story is quite as true as the 

47 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

history. No, the chief difference is that in the 
histories we are told about the people, while in 
the stories we are brought into the company of the 
people themselves; we hear them talk. Look at 
the early chapters of Genesis, and you will see that 
they are full of conversation. There is a constant 
sound of voices. You hear what Adam and Eve 
said to one another in the Garden of Eden ; even 
the serpent talks. God comes walking in under the 
trees, looking about in every direction, and calling 
Adam. You will not find anything like this in 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
or in Macaulay's History of England. 

It is fortunate that the knowledge and belief 
which Abraham brought were in this story form, 
because that makes them interesting even to boys 
and girls. It would have been quite different if it 
had been expressed in the language of science. 
This is another difference between truth which is 
put in the form of a story and truth which is put 
in the form of a history; the story form lasts 
longer. The language of science changes from 
century to century, but the language of the story 
is never outworn because it is the language of 
human life. 

We know that these stories were brought from 

48 



WHAT ABRAHAM BROUGHT 

the old home of the Hebrews in the east, because 
some of them are found there still. They had a 
way, in that old time, of making books of brick. 
They would take a soft brick and stamp into it 
the letters of the words and sentences, and when 
the brick was hard there was the writing in a 
lasting form. Evidently, a brick book will go un- 
harmed through fire and water which would 
entirely destroy our books of paper. In the 
ruins of cities which were destroyed centuries ago 
are found brick books in which these stories 
were written, and the stories themselves were 
already centuries old when they were written thus 
in brick. 

There are important differences, however, be- 
tween the stories which are found on bricks in 
Nineveh or Babylon and those which we read in 
the first eleven chapters of Genesis. It is like 
painting pictures. In order to paint a picture, one 
must have a canvas, and a brush, and various 
kinds of paint; but two artists may have all this 
alike, and be painting the same scene, and yet 
make very different pictures. For the picture 
depends, after all, on the painter. A great painter 
is one to whom God has given a gift which is 
called genius. He knows what to do, and how to 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

do it, what to bring into his picture, and what to 

leave out. 

This is like the difference between the stories 
which Abraham had in his memory as he learned 
them from his grandfather, and the stories which 
he told his sons. God had given Abraham a gift, 
like genius, which is called inspiration. It enabled 
him to see the difference between the false and the 
true, and to know more about God than was 
known by other men. What we have in these 
stories is the knowledge and belief of the ancient 
world, brought out of Babylonia by Abraham and 
other Hebrews, and retold in the light of their 

better faith in God. 

At the heart of these accounts of the Creation, 
and the Fall, and the Flood, and the Tower of 
Babel, is the assurance of the being and the care 
of God. "In the beginning, God created the 
heavens and the earth." Gradually, under His 
hand, the light came out of the darkness, the sun 
and stars appeared, the land was divided from the 
sea, and plants and animals and man began to 

grow. 

Then came sin, by disobedience. Man, in order 
to be truly good, must have opportunity to be bad. 
Otherwise, his goodness is of no value. It is like 

50 



WHAT ABRAHAM BROUGHT 

the goodness of a doll. True goodness is a free, 
right choice. This is the idea of the Greek story 
of Pandora and Epimetheus, which Hawthorne 
has retold in the " Paradise of Children." In that 
case, the opportunity to be bad was given, you re- 
member, in the command not to open a closed 
box. Pandora opened the box, and all the pains 
and sins of the world flew out. This is the same 
lesson which is taught by the forbidden fruit in the 
Garden of Eden. It matters little what is for- 
bidden. Something must be forbidden in order to 
make man's obedience of value, in order to show 
whether he is good because he desires to be good, or 
because he has no opportunity to be bad. 

Then disobedience bore its natural fruit. The 
small sin grew like the small seed. Cain and Abel 
had quite different tastes and occupations. Cain 
was a farmer, and Abel was a shepherd. And they 
disagreed and quarreled; and Cain struck his 
brother and killed him. By-and-by the world 
was so bad that it seemed necessary to do with it 
as one does with a blackboard when all the figures 
go wrong; man had to be washed off the surface of 
the earth. Thus the Flood came. 

But even after that, the race of man went wrong 
again. The Tower of Babel was built as a fortress 

51 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

in which men might defend themselves against 
another Flood, and against God. So God scattered 
them abroad. Away they went, in the direction 
of the four winds, and formed separate nations, 
speaking different languages. The list of names in 
the tenth chapter of Genesis represents them. 

At last, out of these many nations, a single 
people was selected that God might teach His 
truth to them particularly, and that they might 
teach His truth to the others. This chosen nation 
was the Hebrew people. And the first Hebrew was 
Abraham. 



52 



FROM MESOPOTAMIA TO EGYPT 

Genesis 12-50. 

1. Abraham 

(1) The Call 12:1-8. 

(2) The departure of Lot 13:5-18. 

a. The kings invade Sodom 14:1-24. 

b. The storm destroys Sodom 18:16-33, 
19:15-26. 

(3) The dream of the naming torch 15:1-18. 

2. Isaac. 

(1) The sacrifice, 22:1-19. 

(2) The selection of Rebekah, 24. 

3. Jacob. 

(1) The supplanting of Esau, 27. 

(2) The dream of the ladder and the angels, 28. 

(3) The wooing of Rachel, 29:1-30. 

(4) The meeting with Esau 32:1-33:19. 

4. Joseph. 

(1) The selling of Joseph, 37. 

(2) The explaining of the dreams, 40, 41. 

(3) Joseph and his brethren, 42-45. 

(4) The settlement in Egypt, 46:1-7, 47-50. 

, \X/ r E have now come a little way into the first 

book of the Bible, and have fairly started 

on our journey. We are now to follow the history 

of the Hebrew people as one might follow the 

53 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

course of a river, not stopping long in any place, 
now passing through a forest and now through a 
city, tracing the stream from the spring to the 
sea. And first we are to go through the remaining 
chapters of the book of Genesis. 

Abraham, being called of God, rose up from 
among his neighbors, and went out to begin a new 
nation. He and the people with him were colonists 
like those who came to Jamestown in 1607, and to 
Plymouth in 1620. And, like the Pilgrim Fathers, 
what they desired was not only new lands, but 
freedom to worship God in their own way. It was 
perhaps fifteen hundred years before Christ, when 
the Hebrews crossed the Euphrates, and made 
their way down the western side of the Triangle 
into what is now called Palestine. 

Once they stopped at a great tree, by Shechem, 
a vast oak, in whose mighty branches as the wind 
blew Abraham heard a voice like the voice of God, 
which told him that all that land should some day 
belong to his children and his children's children. 
They never forgot it, but even in distant countries, 
and in slavery, they remembered the promise and 
called the land the Promised Land. 

Another time they stopped by a high mountain, 
near Bethel, and Abraham and Lot, his nephew, 

54 



THE MESOPOTAMIA TO EGYPT 

climbed its heights and looked out over the land 
to the south. And Abraham said, "Lot, you know 
how many flocks and herds we have and how when 
we feed them and water them our herdsmen fight 
for the best places. Let us have no more strife. 
Let us settle down peacefully apart. You go your 
way and I will go my way. Behold the land. 
Which part will you take?" Now there were gray 
hills to the right and a green valley to the left, and 
Lot chose the valley. There he settled in the 
neighborhood of Sodom and Gomorrah, and a hard 
time he had of it. For the place was not so 
pleasant as it looked, nor were the people who lived 
there so good as they ought to have been in so 
fair a land. Once while Lot lived there, the cities 
were taken by enemies and the people carried 
away captive. And finally the cities were de- 
stroyed in a terrible rain of fire and brimstone. 
Lot escaped, and became the father of two great 
peoples who lived east of the Dead Sea, the Am- 
monites and the Moabites. 

Presently, Abraham had two sons. The mother 
of Ismael, the older, was Hagar. She was servant 
to Sarah, Abraham's wife, who was the mother of 
Isaac. For in those days men often had more 
than one wife. But the wives quarrelled, and 

55 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

Sarah sent Hagar and Ishmael away. So they 
went into the desert, the mother and the little 
boy, and there was no water to drink, and they 
came near dying of thirst. But God showed 
Hagar a spring of water. So the lad lived, and 
dwelt in the wilderness, and became the father of 
the Arabs, who were called Ismaelites; even as 
Lot had become the father of the Ammonites and 

Moabites. 

After the departure of Ishmael, Abraham's only 
son was Isaac. His birth had been promised by an 
angel, and he was to be his father's heir, and 
Abraham and Sarah loved him dearly. But in the 
land from which Abraham came, and in the 
country where he dwelt, there was a belief that the 
best gift which a father and mother can give to 
God is one of their own children, and the way in 
which they gave this gift was to take the child and 
tie his hands and feet and lay him on a pile of wood 
and set the wood on fire. And it came into the 
heart of Abraham that he ought to do that dread- 
ful thing. He took his little son whom he loved, 
his only son, and made ready to offer him in this 
way as a sacrifice. But at the very moment when 
he was standing with his knife uplifted a great 
voice sounded in his heart, and told him not to do 



FROM MESOPOTAMIA TO EGYPT 

it. And God showed him a ram caught in a 
thicket, and this he sacrificed in the place of his 
son. Thus Abraham was taught a lesson, which 
men in the old time learned very slowly, that God 
does not desire human sacrifice. It appears again 
in the story of Iphigenia, where the Greeks were 
waiting days and days for a breeze to take their 
ships to Troy, till at last Agamemnon, the admiral 
of the fleet, was compelled to sacrifice his daughter, 
Iphigenia; but one of the gods took her away, and 
placed a doe on the altar in her stead. 

When Isaac was grown to manhood, his father 
sent a trusted servant to find him a wife in the old 
country beyond the Euphrates. And the servant 
found Isaac's cousin Rebekah. She was drawing 
water at the well when the servant met her, and 
she went back with him and became the wife of 
Isaac. Then Isaac and Rebekah had two sons, 
Jacob and Esau. But when they became men they 
had a great quarrel because Jacob deceived his 
father in his old age and got the blessing which 
Isaac had intended for Esau. After that, there is 
little more said of Esau. As Abraham had been 
chosen and Lot left to be the father of the Am- 
monites and Moabites; and as Isaac had been 
chosen, and Ishmael left to be the father of the 

57 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

Arabs ; so now Jacob was chosen and Esau became 
the father of the Edomites, a tribe which lived 
south-east of the Dead Sea. Then the name of 
Jacob was changed to Israel, which means a 
" prince of God/' and thereafter the interest is 
centered on the fortunes of his children and de- 
scendents, the Israelites. 

Jacob fled from the anger of his brother Esau, 
and went beyond the Euphrates to his uncle 
Laban's. And on the way he dreamed a dream. 
And in the dream he heard the voice of God as his 
grandfather Abraham had heard it long before. 
For Abraham had dreamed that he saw a flaming 
torch pass between the divided pieces of a sacrifice, 
and that God said, "Unto thy children have I 
given all this land." Now Jacob dreamed, and 
behold a shining ladder reached from earth to 
heaven, and angels were climbing up and climbing 
down upon it, and God said, "Thy seed shall be as 
the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad 
to the west, and to the east, and to the north and to 
the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the 
families of the earth be blessed." 

So Jacob went to his uncle Laban's, and there 
stayed many years. And he married his cousin 
Leah and his cousin Rachel. And when at last ,he 

58 



FROM MESOPOTAMIA TO EGYPT 

came back again to the Promised Land he had 
many sheep and many cattle. And Jacob had 
twelve sons. Thus he came again to Shechem, 
where Abraham had heard the voice of God as the 
wind blew in the tree. A range of mountains runs 
through the length of Palestine, from north to 
south. At the middle of the range there is a pass. 
The hills divide, and a green valley lies between. 
Along this valley one may go from the coast of the 
Mediterranean on the west to the bank of the 
Jordan on the east. On one side of the valley is 
Mount Ebal, and on the other side Mount Ger- 
ezim. Shechem was in this pleasant valley. There 
they settled, having pasture for their flocks and 
herds. 

Of his twelve sons, Jacob liked Joseph best. But 
this displeased his brothers and they hated him. 
And one day, when they were in the fields, they 
seized Joseph and sold him to a caravan of Ish- 
maelites who were on their way to Egypt, and they 
told their father that a wild beast had devoured 
him. Joseph was carried down to Egypt, and sold 
as a slave to the keeper of the king's prison. And 
one time, in the prison, the king's butler and the 
king's baker dreamed strange dreams, and Joseph 
explained them, and the dreams came true even as 

59 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

Joseph had said. So presently when Pharaoh 
the king had a mysterious dream which nobody 
could explain, he sent for Joseph. Now the dream 
was that seven thin and lean cows ate up seven fat 
cows, and again that seven thin and withered ears 
of corn swallowed up seven good ears. Joseph said 
that this meant that seven years of plenty would 
be followed by seven years of famine. And he 
ventured to advise Pharoah to gather into great 
storehouses the crops of the seven years of fertility, 
that there might be food for the seven years of 
dearth. This pleased the king, and he took Joseph 
out of the prison and set him on the throne beside 
him, and appointed him over this business. Thus 
Joseph became the ruler, next to the king, of all 
the land of Egypt. 

Then the years of famine came, and the crops 
failed even in the green valley of Shechem. And 
the brothers of Joseph had to go down to Egypt to 
buy corn out of the storehouses which Joseph had 
built. And there was Joseph! At first, they did 
not know him, as he sat in state; but, after sev- 
eral interesting adventures, he revealed himself to 
them, and sent for his father Jacob to come down 
and live in Egypt. Back went the brothers, then, 
with wagons, and Jacob and all his family departed 

GO 



FROM MESOPOTAMIA TO EGYPT 

from Shechem, left the Promised Land behind 
them, and took up their residence in Egypt. There 
they settled, with their flocks and herds, in the 
pleasant pastures of the province of Goshen, 
between the Delta of the Nile and the Isthmus of 
Suez. 



61 



FROM THE NILE TO MOUNT SINAI 

Exodus 1-17. 

1. The education of Moses. 

(1) In Egypt: Pharaoh's daughter, 2. 

(2) In Midian: The burning bush, 3. 

2. The mission of Moses. 

(1) The plagues, 8-10. 

(2) The Passover, 12. 

3. The passage of the Red Sea. 

(1) The east wind, 14. 

(2) The song of rejoicing, 15. 

4. On the way to Sinai. 

(1) The provision of bread, 16:1-15. 

(2) The provision of water, 17:1-7. 

(3) The fight with Amalek, 17:8-16. 

^HEN years passed, so many that the great ser- 
vices of Joseph were forgotten. Jacob died, 
and Joseph and his brothers died, and new kings 
came to the throne of Egypt. But the children of 
Israel in the land of Goshen prospered and in 
creased. At last, there were so many of them that 
the Egyptians became alarmed. "What would 
happen," they said, "if we should be invaded by 
an enemy. The Children of Israel might fight 
against us." For any invading enemy must come 



FROM THE NILE TO MOUNT SINAI 

down through that part of the country in which 
the Israelites lived. So they brought the Israel- 
ites into bondage. They made them slaves. Fin- 
ally they made a law that every boy baby among 
them must be put to death. 

In spite of this law, the child Moses escaped. 
His mother made a little boat out of a basket, and 
put the baby in it at a place on the river Nile 
where Pharaoh's daughter came to bathe. So she 
found the child and adopted it. Moses was 
brought up in the palace. But he never forgot that 
he was an Israelite. One day, being in the field 
where the Children of Israel were at work, and the 
Egyptians were driving them with whips to make 
them work faster, Moses saw an Egyptian beating 
an Israelite so cruelly that he went to defend him, 
and in the fight he killed the Egyptian. Thus it 
became known to the king that the sympathies of 
Moses were with his own people. He had to flee 
for his life. Away he went, across the Isthmus of 
Suez, into Arabia, to the land of Midian. There 
he stayed, and presently married a daughter of 
Jethro, a priest of the religion of that country. 

Still he remembered his people. And one day, 
as he tended Jethro's flocks in the shadow of 
Sinai, he saw a bush mysteriously burning, and 

63 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

heard in his soul the voice of God. God said that 
He too remembered the Children of Israel, and 
was ready to help them. "You must go," He 
said to Moses," and deliver them out of their 
bondage in Egypt." So Moses, with his brother 
Aaron, went on this mission to Egypt. 

Four books— Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and 
Deuteronomy— describe the life and services of 
Moses. He became the leader and the lawgiver of 
the people. First, he led them out of Egypt, over 
the Red Sea, and through the wilderness east, to 
Sinai. The account of it is in the first half of 
Exodus. There, at Sinai, he gave them laws. The 
second half of Exodus, the whole of Leviticus, the 
first part and the last part of Numbers, and the 
whole of Deuteronomy are filled with laws. 
Finally, leaving Sinai, he led them in the wilder- 
ness till they marched north, by the lands of 
Edom and Moab, to begin the conquest of Canaan. 
This march is described in the middle part of 
Numbers. We are concerned, then, with the 
leadership of Moses from Egypt to Mount Sinai, 
with the laws at Sinai, and with the leadership of 
Moses from Sinai to Canaan. 

The first thing to do was to get the Israelites out 

of Egypt. 



FROM THE NILE TO MOUNT SINAI 

Moses and Aaron petitioned Pharaoh to let the 
people go that they might hold a religious festival 
in the wilderness. But his answer was not only a 
refusal but an increase of their burdens. He said 
that they were idle, and must be made to work 
harder. 

Then came a series of calamities. All the afflic- 
tions to which the land of Egypt was subject came 
one after another, worse than had ever been 
known. In the midst of every plague, Moses and 
Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "The Lord com- 
mands you to let His people go." And every time, 
the king promised; but when the plague ceased, he 
refused. Thus the Nile ran red like blood, and out 
of the discolored river came great multitudes of 
frogs, and the dying and decaying frogs bred flies, 
and the flies spread disease so that there were 
boils on every man and beast; and hail came, with 
thunder and lightning; and an east wind brought 
swarms of locusts, and a west wind brought sand 
from the desert, so that the day was as black as 
night, and the darkness could even be felt. At 
last, in every family in Egypt, the first-born died. 

For this tragedy, Moses had prepared the 
Israelites. He told them to mark their houses. 
"Let every family kill a lamb, and dip a bunch of 

65 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

hyssop in the blood and strike it on the lintel of 
the door and on the two side posts. Thus shall 
God see your houses and pass over them when He 
comes to smite the Egyptians.' ' Afterwards, they 
called this the Passover, and kept a feast every year, 
and do so to this day, in memory of it. Pharaoh 
called for Moses and Aaron. "Go," he said, 
" worship the Lord as you have requested." And 
the Egyptians hastened them, giving them jewels 
of gold and silver, and leaving them not even time 
enough to bake their bread. Away they went, 
carrying the dough without yeast, unleavened. It 
was in the spring of the year, and the moon was 

full. 

There were two roads out of Egypt. One ran to 
the north-east, along the shore of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, and was called the Way of the Philis- 
tines, because it led into the Philistine country. 
The other ran to the south-east, across the penin- 
sula which makes a little thumb to the great 
mitten of Arabia. This was called the Way of the 
Sea. The Israelites chose the southern route, 
being afraid of the Philistines. On they marched, 
hurrying to get out of reach of the Egyptians. 
When a caravan crosses the desert, a leader goes 
before with a long pole at the top of which is a 

66 



FROM THE NILE TO MOUNT SINAI 

brazier of burning coals; and in the day, the 
smoke rises in a column which is seen from long 
distances over the level land; and in the night, 
the pillar of smoke is like a pillar of fire. Thus the 
Lord led them. 

But the Way of the Sea, being one of the en- 
trances of Egypt, was fortified. A wall crossed it, 
with a guard of soldiers. And as the Israelites 
came near the wall, the Egyptians came in sight, 
pursuing them. Even the last plague had not con- 
vinced them that they were contending against 
God. They explained it, as they had explained the 
others, as a natural calamity which had no con- 
nection with the Israelites. So they came, with 
horses and chariots and fighting men, to capture 
these escaping slaves. And there were the children 
of Israel, with the wall and the sea before them, 
and the pursuers coming up behind. 

Then, that night, the Lord caused a great 
wind to blow out of the east, and it blew away the 
water of the shallow sea, and the Children of 
Israel marched over on firm ground. And in the 
morning, the wind changed, and the sea came 
back, and the Egyptians, who were following the 
Israelites even to the midst of the sea, were 
drowned. Thus the long slavery of the Israelites 

67 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

came to an end, and they were out of Egypt, a 

free people. 

The peninsula into which the Israelites thus 
entered is enclosed between two long and narrow 
gulfs of the Red Sea. The people had crossed one 
of these, called the Gulf of Suez, and they made 
their way to the other, called the Gulf of Akabah. 
Some think that they did this by first going down 
to the end of the peninsula and then going up on 
the other side. Some think that they went straight 
across the top. Thus taking at«le to repre- 
sent the peninsula, like this Y A is the top 
of the Gulf of Suez, B is the top of the Gulf of 
Akabah, and C is where Mount Sinai is found by 
those who are of the first opinion. But D repre- 
sents the location of Mount Sinai, according to 
those who hold the second opinion. Against find- 
ing Sinai in the lower part of the peninsula is the 
difficulty of understanding why the Israelites 
should have gone in that direction, deeper and 
deeper into the desolate hills. In favor of finding 
Sinai outside the peninsula is the fact that it is 
thus placed in the friendly land of Midian. Not 
only would they naturally go there for protection, 
but there it was apparently that Moses had found 
Sinai as he fed Jethro's flocks, and had been told 



FROM THE NILE TO MOUNT SINAI 

by the Lord to return thither when he should have 
brought the people out. Probably he led them 
from A to B and then to D. 

Three things happened by the way. One time, 
there was nothing to eat, and the people were so 
hungry that they were sorry they had left Egypt; 
but God gave them manna, as if it had rained down 
from the sky. Another time, there was nothing to 
drink, and the people were so thirsty that again 
they wished that they had stayed in Egypt; but 
Moses found water for them, striking a great rock, 
and bringing it out. Also a wild people, the 
Amalekites, who roamed about the desert, attacked 
them, but the Israelites were victorious, fighting 
in the valley while Moses, with uplifted hands, 
prayed on the side of the hill. These incidents 
show how the Israelites felt themselves to be under 
the protection of God, who provided for their 
needs, and fought their battles. 



69 



THE GIVING OF THE LAW 

1. Moses receives the law from God. 

(1) The Ten Commandments 

a. The Moral law, Exodus 20 :1-17 Deut- 

eronomy, 5. 

b. The Ceremonial law, Exodus 34:1-28. 

(2) The Golden Calf, Exodus 32. 

2. Moses appoints judges to administer the law: 

Exodus 18. 

3. The book of the moral law: Deuteronomy. 

4. The book of the ceremonial law: Leviticus. 

^pHUS they came, after these adventures, to the 
mountain toward which their journey had 
been directed. There in the shadow of Mount 
Sinai they pitched their tents, and rested at last 
after their long flight from Egypt. They were a 
great multitude of weary and frightened people. 
The first thing to do was to bring order out of 
their confusion. They must be taught to obey, 
for that is the very beginning of civilization, and 
they must be told what laws they must obey. 

There was a storm raging on the top of the 
mountain, with lightning flashing and thunder 
rolling; and Moses went up into the storm to 

70 



THE GIVING OF THE LAW 

speak with God, to learn the laws of God. But 
there he stayed, day after day, till the people 
thought that he was never coming down again, and 
they made Aaron their leader, and got him to make 
an image to which they might say their prayers; 
for all nations at that time had idols which they 
worshipped as their gods. Nowhere were any 
people who knelt down, as we do,~and spoke to the 
unseen. So the Israelites wished to have an image 
for their god. Now they all wore golden ear-rings, 
the men and boys as well as the women and girls, 
and these they gave to Aaron, and he made a 
golden calf. Then, as they were praying and sing- 
ing to the golden calf, down came Moses. And 
Moses took the calf and broke it into a thousand 
pieces, and threw the pieces into the river; and 
he told them that God is not like a calf, nor like 
anything else which we can see, but is the invisible 
Father of men. 

Then, again, he went into the mountain, and 
when he came down, he brought the Ten Com- 
mandments with him. And Moses taught the 
people the laws of God. Day by day, when any- 
body did wrong he was brought to Moses that he 
might be judged, and all disputes were referred to 
Moses that he might settle them according to the 

71 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

will of God. Thus the laws increased in number; 
first, the great, universal laws which Moses had 
learned of God; then the many little laws which 
Moses made to fit the great laws to the conduct of 
the people. 

One day, Jethro came, the father-in-law of 

Moses, and Moses' wife came with him. And 

Jethro, who was now an old man, saw that Moses 

was trying to do more than his strength could bear, 

and more than there was time for in a day, and he 

gave him some good advice. He advised Moses to 

get men to help him in this matter of the law. He 

said that Moses might decide the great cases, but 

that he ought to teach other men how to deal with 

the little cases. And Moses followed his advice. 

He appointed seventy judges who took the laws 

of Moses and used them in their daily dealing 

with the people, themselves deciding most disputes 

but bringing the more important troubles to 

Moses. 

So now there were three kinds of law; first, the 
divine law, the immediate commands of God; then 
the law of Moses, being the divine law as he ex- 
plained and applied it; and then the law of the 
helpers of Moses, being the decisions of Moses ex- 
tended to new cases. Thus the law grew like a 

72 



THE GIVING OF THE LAW 

tree, with the word of God for the seed, the word of 
Moses for the stem, and the words of the assistants 
and successors of Moses for the branches. All 
these laws, beginning at Mount Sinai, and growing 
through hundreds of years, are set down in the 
last half of Exodus, the first and last parts of 
Numbers, and the whole of Leviticus and Deuter- 
onomy. 

For a long time, the laws were unwritten. 
People carried them in their memory. The oldest 
laws are probably in Exodus (20-23). They are 
called the Book of the Covenant. Then, probably 
in the time of King Josiah, the Book of Deuter- 
onomy was written, recalling what Moses had 
said about right conduct; and probably in the 
time of the prophet Ezekiel, the Book of Leviticus 
was written, recalling what Moses had said about 
the right worship of God. 

Thus Deuteronomy contains laws of conduct. 
It tells people to be honest and fair, to be good to 
the poor, to speak the truth. It says that if any- 
body finds a bird's nest in a tree or on the ground, 
with a mother bird and eggs or little ones, they 
must not hurt the mother bird (Deut. 22 ;6). 
And whoever builds a house, must put a battle- 
ment or fence along the edge of the roof to keep 

73 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

men from falling off (Deut. 22:8). "When thou 
cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast 
forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again 
to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the 
fatherless, and for the widow; that the Lord thy 
God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands' ' 

(Deut. 24:19). 

Leviticus contains laws of worship. It describes 
the different kinds of sacrifice, and how they are 
to be offered. "He shall bring his offering of 
turtle doves, or of young pigeons. And the priest 
shall bring it unto the altar; and the blood thereof 
shall be wrung out at the side of the altar; and he 
shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and 
cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the 
place of the ashes; and he shall cleanse it with the 
wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder, and 
the priest shall burn it upon the altar" (Leviticus 
1:14-17). You see how different are these direc- 
tions about birds in Leviticus from the directions 
about birds in Deuteronomy. 



74 



FROM MOUNT SINAI TO THE JORDAN 

1. The tabernacle and the ark, Exodus 26, 27. 

2. The garments of the priests, Exodus 28. 

3. The sending of the spies, Numbers 13:17-14:41. 

4. The march to the Promised Land. 

(1) The King of Edom will not permit them 

to pass through. Numbers 20 :14-21. 

(2) They conquer Sihon, King of the Ammon- 

ites, Numbers 21 :21-35. 
(4) Balak, King of Moab, employs the ma- 
gician, Balaam, Numbers 22-24. 

5. The death of Moses. 

(1) The song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32 :l-43 

(2) The blessing of Moses, Deuteronomy 33. 

(3) The burial of Moses, Deuteronomy 34. 

T^HE Ten Commandments were inscribed on 
twotablets of stone and put in a chest, 
which they called the Ark, and the Ark was kept 
in a tent, called the Tabernacle, which was their 
church. This church they carried with them, wher- 
ever they went. Years after, when they built the 
Temple in Jerusalem, they made it like the Tab- 
ernacle, but in stone and gold; there was an altar 

75 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

on which they burned animals which they had 
killed, to offer them to God; and an altar on which 
they sprinkled incense to make a fragrant smoke; 
and in the Holy of Holies, behind a curtain, was 
the Ark. It was then the only church in the world 
which contained no image of God. The Com- 
mandments were their symbol of God. 

Aaron and his sons were appointed to serve at 
these altars and to minister in this church. Direc- 
tions were given as to the garments which they 
were to wear. Aaron was to be dressed in a white 
gown fringed with blue and purple and scarlet 
pomegranates, like little apples, and between the 
pomegranates little golden bells to make a tinkling 
as he walked. And he had a breast plate contain- 
ing twelve jewels, on which were inscribed the 
names of the twelve tribes of Israel. And on his 
head he had a turban of linen, called a mitre, and 
on the front of it was a band of gold tied with a 
blue ribbon, and bearing the words, Holiness to the 

Lord. 

Now they were ready to march from Mount 
Sinai to the Promised Land. But first they sent 
out spies to see what kind of land it was, and what 
sort of people lived in it already. So the spies 
went, and journeyed up and down, and here and 

76 



FROM MOUNT SINAI TO THE JORDAN 

there, keeping their eyes open, and brought back 
their report. And the report was that the land 
was good to live in; they showed a vast bunch of 
grapes which grew there, to let the people know 
how fertile was the soil. But they said also that 
the men who lived there were big and strong, like 
giants. "We were like grasshoppers," they said, 
" beside them." They added that these giants 
lived in great walled cities. 

Then the Israelites set up a great cry of fear, 
and refused to go into the Promised Land. And 
even Moses could not pursuade them. Some, in- 
deed, who were braver than the others, set off by 
themselves, against the command of Moses, and 
attacked some of the nearer towns of the Promised 
Land, but they were beaten back in hopeless 
defeat. Thus matters were made worse. The 
people had been slaves so long that they were in no 
condition to go to war. They were not ready for it 
in either mind or body. So they stayed in the 
wilderness. Year after year, they wandered about 
from place to place. They gathered flocks and 
herds and drove them before them. They lived 
an out-door life. They grew every year more 
strong and more brave. They learned how to be 
hungry and thirsty without crying. The old 

77 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

people grew very old and died, and the young men 
who took their places were quite different from 
their fathers who were frightened by the report of 
the spies. At last, Moses saw that the time had 
come to leave the wandering life of the wilderness 
and try again to win the Promised Land. 

The Promised Land is bordered on the north by 
the mountains of Lebanon, on the west by the 
Mediterranean Sea, on the south by the wilderness 
and on the east by the river Jordan, which flows 
between the Lake of Galilee and the Dead Sea. 
The Israelites did not try again to enter the land 
from the south. They determined to invade it 
from the east, crossing the Jordan. So they 
marched north. But there were two nations in 
their way; first, Edom, then Moab. 

So they sent messengers to the king of Edom, 
asking permission to go through his land. They 
promised to keep to the highways, not to pass 
through field or vineyard, nor to drink any water 
without paying for it. But the king of Edom 
would not give permission, and the Israelites 
did not quite venture to make their way by 
force, so they went around, a long journey, but 
a safe one. 

Thus they came to the domains of Sihon, king 

78 



THE CONQUEST OF THE PROMISED LAND 

of the Amorites, and they asked of him as they had 
asked of Edom consent to pass peacefully through 
his country, but now when Sihon refused, they at- 
tacked him and conquered him. Thus they found 
that they had strength and courage, and they went 
on with a new spirit. 

As for the king of Moab, whose name was 
Balak, he was so frightened when he heard what 
had happened to King Sihon, that he sent for a 
mighty magician, named Balaam, to curse the 
army of Israel. And Balaam came and built altars 
on the peaks of mountains, and offered sacrifices, 
and listened in his soul for the word of God, but all 
the word was blessing, never a word of cursing. 
So on came Israel, and drew near to the place 
where they were to cross <the Jordan into the Prom- 
ised Land. 

And Moses went up into a high mountain 
called Pisgah, or Nebo, whence he could look out 
over that fair land. He was now an old man, worn 
with years and with labors, and his work was done. 
He had redeemed his people out of Egypt, given 
them laws which made them a nation, and changed 
a multitude of slaves into a strong army. He went 
up and looked over into the Promised Land. And 
he never came down again. The people waited, 



79 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

but he did not come. The farewell, and the song, 
and the blessing of Moses are in Deuteronomy. 
He had given his last counsels and said his last 
words. He was seen no more. And Joshua be- 
came commander in his stead. 



80 



THE CONQUEST OF THE PROMISED LAND 

Joshua 

1. The invasion.', 

1. The crossing of the Jordan, 1-5. 

2. The siege of Jericho, 6. 

3. The siege of Ai, 7, 8. 

4. The league with Gibeon, 9. 

5. The battle of Beth-Horon, 10. 

6. The battle of Merom, 11. 

2. The settlement. 

1. East of the Jordan, 13. 

— the altar of remembrance, 22. 

2. West of the Jordan 12, 14-20. 

— early account, Judges 1, 2. 
— the lot of Levi, 21. 

3. The farewell of Joshua. 

gETWEEN the Hebrews and the Promised 
Land was the river Jordan. The water was 
deep and swift, and there were no bridges. More- 
over, at that season of the year, the river was un- 
commonly wide, being swollen by the spring rains 
and over-flowing all its banks. The first business 
of Joshua, when he became commander after the 
death of Moses, was to find a ford. He looked for 

81 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

a shallow place where the people might safely 
wade across. 

Suddenly, while he was looking for a good 
wading-place, the river ceased to run. Miles away 
in the north it was dammed up so that it stood, as 
the Bible says, "in a heap." Then the command 
was given to march. The men who carried the 
ark went first and stood in the middle of the bed 
of the river and all the host of Israel followed them. 
Thus they crossed the Jordan almost as wonder- 
fully as their fathers had crossed the Red Sea. At 
the Red Sea the Lord had caused a strong east 
wind to blow the water back. What means He 
made use of at the Jordan we are not told; but 
one time an army of Arabs crossed the Jordan on 
dry land, because the river was suddenly dammed 
by the falling of banks which a freshet had under- 
mined. 

There they stood, then, in the land which they 
meant to take for their own possession. But the 
country, as they knew very well, was already in- 
habited. They could not take it without fighting. 
So they proceeded to fight. The first town to 
which they came was Jericho. Already, they had 
sent spies into the town, and the spies came back, 
after various adventures, and made their report. 

82 



THE CONQUEST OF THE PROMISED LAND 

"The city/' they said, "has walls about it, thick 
and high and made of stone; and every night when 
the sun sets, they lock the gates. But we have 
made friends there, especially a woman named 
Rahab, and her family. They are on our side. 
And the people are greatly afraid." 

So they marched against the place. It was their 
first battle in the Promised Land, and they never 
forgot it. The story was told and retold by sol- 
diers around camp-fires, and by fathers and 
mothers to their children, long before it was 
written in the Bible: how they marched around 
the city seven times on seven days, the priests 
going before with the ark, and blowing with their 
ram's-horn trumpets, the people of Jericho looking 
on in amazement from the top of the wall; how 
at last the walls fell down, and in they went 
straight before them; and how they killed every- 
body in sight, big and little, men and women, old 
and young. 

It was a victory so wonderful that they felt that 
it had been gained for them by the hand of God. 
If Rahab helped, by opening the gates at night, 
they made no mention of it. Anyhow, by miracle 
or by stratagem, they took the town. As for the 
killing of the people, which seems to us so dread- 

83 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

f ul, and is no longer done in any war, that was the 
custom of the time; they knew no better. 

The land of Palestine, into which the Israelites 
had now entered, was a little country, no bigger 
than New Hampshire. The whole middle part was 
a long range of low and broken hills, rising in the 
north into the high peaks of Lebanon, and falling 
in the south, towards Egypt, into a rolling wilder- 
ness. Many of the hills were crowned with walled 
towns. In these towns lived the Canaanites. 
They were distant cousins of the Israelites, having 
themselves come in from Arabia many years 
before. They were more civilized than the Is- 
raelites. They had substantial houses and good 
furniture, and books, and fine clothes, some of 
which they had imported from Babylon. They 
had cornfields and olive-yards and vineyards; 
and there were so many cows and bees that the 
hills seemed to flow with milk and honey. The 
people worshipped the gods of the sun and of the 
rain, of the corn and of the vine, to whom they 
prayed under the great trees and on the heights of 
the hills, asking for good harvests. 

Between the mountains and the sea lay a wide 
coast, fringed with sand along the shore but 
spreading out into fertile plains. In one place, 

84 



THE CONQUEST OF THE PROMISED LAND 

where the hills came out to meet the sea, the 
coast was interrupted by Mount Carmel. The 
plain to the north of Carmel was inhabited by the 
Phoenicians. They had two strong cities, Tyre 
and Sidon. They were the race who sent their 
colonists along the shores of the Mediterranean, 
and founded the great city of Carthage, which is 
described in the Aeneid, and which under Han- 
nibal became the mighty enemy of Rome. The 
plain to the south of Carmel was inhabited by 
the Philistines, from whom the whole land was 
called Palestine. They had five strong cities, 
Ekron and Ashdod, Askelon and Gath and Gaza. 
They soon became the strongest enemy of the 
Israelites. 

This was the land, long and narrow; bounded 
on the east by the river Jordan, which ran between 
two lakes, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea; 
bounded on the north by the mountains of Leb- 
anon, and on the south by the wilderness which 
reached to Egypt; bounded on the west by the 
-Mediterranean; a land whose hills and valleys 
were held by the Canaanites, divided into half-a- 
dozen little kingdoms, and whose coast plains were 
held by the Phoenicians and Philistines. 

A road ran up straight west from Jericho into 

85 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

the heart of the hills, and this the victorious in- 
vaders took, leaving the ruins of Jericho behind 
them. They went to attack the Canaanites. 
The town of Ai they captured by stratagem. 
One company of soldiers hid behind the town; 
another company marched up the hill in front, and 
when the men of Ai came out against them, they 
ran away and the men of Ai chased them. Then 
rose up the hidden company and began to burn 
the city. Thus the men of Ai were between two 
enemies : the Israelites who had pretended to run 
away in fear turned back and the Israelites who 
had lain in wait ran down. 

The town of Gibeon they failed to capture, by 
reason of another stratagem. Long before they 
came in sight of it they met a company of ragged 
men, footsore and hungry, who said, "We have 
come from a long distance, from over the hills and 
far away; make now an agreement with us." 
And this the Israelites did, believing what they 
said. For the men showed their shoes, worn with 
their long journey; and their bread, stale and 
mouldy, so long ago had it been baked. But the 
next day, on a neighboring hill, appeared the walls 
of a town, and the men of Gibeon said, "That is 
where we live." Nevertheless, the Israelites kept 

86 



THE CONQUEST OF THE PROMISED LAND 

the promise of peace which they had made. They 
compelled the Gibeonites to cut wood and draw 
water for them, but they did not put them to 
death. 

The most important city in that part of the 
country was Jerusalem, and the most famous 
battle which Joshua fought was against five kings, 
of whom the king of Jerusalem was chief. These 
kings had joined their forces to meet the invaders 
and drive them out of the land. The battle was 
fought at the Pass of Beth-Horon. The Israelites 
were assisted by a tremendous hail storm, which 
beat in the faces of the enemy. The five kings 
turned and fled, and Joshua and his men pursued 
them through the pass. An old war-song, pre- 
served in a collection of ballads called the Book of 
Jasher, says that Joshua made the sun and moon 
stand still that he might have light enough to see 
the fleeing Canaanites. "Sun," he cried, "stand 
thou still upon Gibeon, and thou Moon in the 
valley of Ajalon." Thus a poet described the 
greatness of their triumph: they did so much 
that day that it seemed like two days, the sun and 
moon seemed to wait for them to complete their 
victory. 

In spite of this successful battle, the Israelites 

87 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

did not take Jerusalem. It remained in possession 
of the Canaanites till the time of David. Thus 
they settled down in a land which was conquered 
only in part. Some cities they captured, others 
they were not able to capture. In some places 
they put the Canaanites to death or drove them 
out; in others, they became their neighbors, and 
learned their ways, both good and evil. Joshua 
divided Palestine among the Israelites, as William 
divided England among the Normans. But each 
tribe fought for its own section of country. The 
tribe of Dan, for example, found an undefended 
town in a fertile district by the sources of the 
Jordan and took it for their own. The tribes of 
Reuben and Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh 
settled on the east of the Jordan. In the south of 
Palestine, the tribe of Judah was most successful; 
in the north, the tribe of Ephraim, one of the sons 
of Joseph. 



88 



THE DEFENCE OF THE PROMISED LAND 

Judges, Ruth. 

1. Introduction. 

The long struggle, Judges 1, 2. 

2. The champions of Israel. 

(1) Othniel against the Mesopotamians 3 :1— 11, 

(2) Ehud against the Moabites, 3:12-31. 

(3) Deborah and Barak against the Canaan- 

ites. 

a. The story in prose, 4. 

6. The story in poetry, 5. 

(4) Gideon against the Midianites. 

a. The valor of Gideon, 6-8. 

b. The violence of Abimelech, 9. 

(5) Jephthah against the Ammonites, 10-12. 

(6) Samson against the Philistines. 

a. The lion and the bees, 14. 

b. The foxes and the fire, 15. 

c. The false Delilah, 16. 

3. Appendix. 

(1) The migration of Dan, 17, 18. 

(2) The war against Benjamin, 19-21. 

4. The story of Ruth, Ruth 1-4. 

"DETWEEN the capture of Jericho by Joshua, at 

the beginning of the conquest of Canaan, and 

the capture of Jerusalem by David, whereby the 

conquest was completed, was a space of a hundred 

89 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

and fifty years. During this time the people were 
settling the land, as well as they could, and de- 
fending themselves against their enemies. 

The chief of these enemies were, first the Ca- 
naanites; then, from the east, beyond the Jordan, 
the Midianites and the Ammonites; then finally, 
from the west, beside the Mediterranean, the 

Philistines. 

In spite of the victories of Joshua, the Ca- 
naanites got the better of the men of Israel. Es- 
pecially in the northern part of the country they 
were so strong that the Israelites did not dare to 
show themselves along the public roads. The 
Canaanites had nine hundred chariots of iron; 
the Israelites had neither shield nor spear. The 
conquest of the Promised Land seemed to have 
failed, and the people seemed likely to become 
slaves to the Canaanites as they had been slaves 
to the Egyptians. Then arose a wise woman 
named Deborah, full of the grace of God, and she 
called a brave man named Barak, and the two 
sent messages to the oppressed tribes, calling for 

men to fight. 

Now, in the midst of the land was a great plain. 
It began at Mount Carmel, where the hills touched 
the sea, and extended across the country to > the 

90 



THE DEFENSE OF THE PROMISED LAND 

Jordan. It was a wide and level place, and 
through it flowed the river Kishon. In the plain, 
on the west, stood the ancient fortress of Megiddo; 
there the Canaanites met, under Sisera their 
general, to punish the revolt of the Israelites. By 
the plain, on the east, was Mount Tabor, where 
Barak gathered his ill-armed followers. Out 
marched Sisera from Megiddo, with his nine hun- 
dred chariots of iron; down rushed Barak along 
the slopes of Tabor. And again, as at the battle 
of Beth-Horon, there was a mighty storm. The 
rain fell in torrents. The plain became a marsh, 
the river suddenly arose, and overflowed its 
banks. The Canaanites fled in dismay, and the 
Israelites pursued them. Sisera took refuge in 
the tent of a woman named Jael, and while he 
slept for weariness she drove a nail of the tent into 
his head and killed him. 

This decisive victory made the men of Israel 
masters of the men of Canaan. But there were 
enemies across the Jordan. 

First came the Midianites, out of the desert. 
Year after year, when the corn and the grapes were 
growing in the fields which the Israelites had 
planted, these wild people came riding in over the 
shallow river and carried away the harvest. Some 

91 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

of the men of Israel they killed, and the others 
they left without either food or cattle. Back they 
went into the wilderness, driving the oxen and 
the sheep before them. 

Against these robbers, the Lord raised up 
Gideon, whose brothers they had killed. Gideon 
called the men of Israel to battle, and a great com- 
pany came, mostly farmers from the fields. Out 
of these he chose three hundred. To each man 
he gave a torch and a pitcher and a trumpet. So 
they came upon the Midianites in the dark, when 
they were all asleep. And when Gideon gave 
the signal, they broke their pitchers, waved 
their flaming torches in the air, and blew upon 
their trumpets. And they shouted, "The sword 
of the Lord and of Gideon." Then the Midian- 
ites were so frightened that they ran away. 
Down they fled on their camels along the valley 
and over the Jordan, and they never came baek 

again. 

The people were so grateful to Gideon that they 
made him their king, and they agreed that his son 
should be king after him. But they who made 
this agreement were not many. The land was so 
full of hills and valleys that the Israelites were 
divided, like the Canaanites before them. Each 

92 



THE DEFENSE OF THE PROMISED LAND 

tribe made its own laws, and fought its own 
battles, and had little to do with its neighbors. 
The whole kingdom of Gideon was only about 
twenty-five miles from north to south, and the 
same distance from east to west. Moreover, the 
son of Gideon, Abimelech, was so bad a king that 
the people were sorry that they had made him 
ruler over them. He began his reign by killing 
his seventy brothers; the town of Shechem re- 
belled against him; finally, beside the wall of 
Thebez, a town which he was attacking, a woman 
threw down a mill-stone upon him from the 
tower, and killed him. 

Then came the Ammonites. They attacked 
the tribes of Israel who had settled east of the 
Jordan. Now there was a famous outlaw in that 
part of the country, named Jephthah, who had 
with him a band of stout men, and as the peril 
from the Ammonites increased the people offered 
to make Jephthah their king if he would rid them 
of their enemies. This Jephthah did, fighting a 
great battle with the Ammonites and defeating 
them. But, on the eve of the battle, Jephthah 
made a vow that if he were successful in the con- 
test he would offer as a sacrifice to God the first 
living creature that should meet him on his vic- 

93 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

torious return. And the first living creature to 
meet him was his own daughter! 

After that, the Israelites fell to fighting among 
themselves. The Ephraimites, — the men west 
of the Jordan, — said to the Gileadites, — the men 
east of the Jordan, — "Why did you not take us 
with you in the war against the Ammonites?' 
Thus they began to quarrel. The Gileadites took 
every Ephraimite whom they could catch on their 
side of the Jordan, and put him to death. And 
when they were in doubt whether the man be- 
longed to Ephraim or not, they said, "Say Shib- 
boleth"; and if the man said " Sibboleth," they 
killed him. 

All these divisions made the Israelites weak in 
the presence of their enemies, and especially in the 
presence of their strongest enemies, the Philistines. 
The Midianites had attacked the northern tribes; 
the Ammonites had attacked the eastern tribes; 
the Philistines attacked the southern tribes. They 
came up from their wide fields and strong cities 
by the sea, and the Israelites were afraid of them. 
There was one strong man, however, who was not 
afraid of the Philistines. His name was Samson. 
Samson was not the leader of an army, like Barak 
and Gideon and Jephthah. He was an adventurer, 

94 



THE DEFENSE OF THE PROMISED LAND 

who fought not to deliver his people but because 
he loved to fight. 

One time, when he married a Philistine woman, 
he told a riddle at the wedding. If the thirty 
young men who came to the wedding could guess 
the riddle, Samson was to give them thirty shirts 
and thirty coats. They did guess it, having 
learned the answer from the bride, and Samson 
went off and killed thirty Philistines, and took 
their shirts and coats to pay his forfeit. 

Another time, when he was angry with the 
Philistines, he caught three hundred foxes and 
tied their tails together, two by two, and fastened 
flaming torches to the tails, and sent them into 
the Philistines' wheat and burned it down. 

Another story was that he went into a walled 
town, and when the gates were locked, the Phil- 
istines said, "Now we have him fast; we will kill 
him in the morning.' ' But in the middle of the 
night, Samson rose up and carried off the gates on 
his back. 

Finally, however, a woman named Delilah be- 
trayed him to the Philistines. She begged him to 
tell her the secret of his great strength; and he 
told her that if his hair were cut he would be like 
any other man. So when he was asleep, she cut 

95 



THE ERA OF THE BEGINNINGS 

his long hair, and the Philistines rushed in and 
bound him, and put out his eyes. 

But one day, when his hair had grown again, 
he was brought into a Philistine temple which was 
filled with the leaders and soldiers of his enemies; 
and suddenly he put forth his hand and broke the 
pillars which held up the roof. Down fell the 
building, and Samson and the Philistines died to- 
gether. 

The victories of Barak over the Canaanites, of 
Gideon over the Midianites, of Jephthah over the 
Ammonites, and of Samson over the Philistines, 
are recorded in the book of Judges. The story of 
Ruth shows that the days were not entirely filled 
with fighting. There had been trouble between 
the Israelites in the south and their neighbors 
across the Jordan, the Moabites. And Ehud, a 
left-handed man of the tribe of Benjamin had gone 
over and killed Eglon, the king of Moab. But 
peace followed, and there was friendship, and even 
marriage, between the two peoples. 
i Ruth, a young woman of Moab, had been mar- 
ried to a son of Naomi who came from Bethlehem. 
The young man died, and when Naomi returned 
to Bethlehem, Ruth came with her. There she 
lived with her mother-in-law, and helped in the 



96 



THE DEFENSE OF THE PROMISED LAND 

work of the household, going out into the fields and 
gathering the wheat which the gleaners dropped 
from their sheaves. And Boaz, the owner of the 
field, saw her, and told his men to be good to her 
and drop some handfuls for her to gather up. And 
at last, he married her. And the son of Ruth and 
Boaz was named Obed, and Obed's son was Jesse, 
and one of Jesse's sons was David. 



97 



THE SELECTION OF SAUL 

I Samuel 1-15, 28-31. 

1. The judgeship of Eli. 

1. Eli and Hannah, 1. 

2. Eli and his sons, 2. 

3. Eli and the word of God, 3. 

4. The capture of the ark, 4-7. 

2. The judgeship of Samuel. 

1. Samuel as leader, 8, 12. 

2. Samuel as seer, 9, 10:1-17. 

3. The appointment of Saul 9:18-27. 

3. The reign of Saul. 

1. The war with the Ammonites. 

The relief of Jabesh, 11. 

2. The war with the Philistines. 

The battle of Miehmash, 13, 14. 

3. The war with the Amalekites. 

Obedience and sacrifice, 15. 

4. The Philistine victory at Mt. Gilboa, 28-31. 

VEAR by year, the Philistines grew stronger than 
the Israelites; because the Philistines were a 
united people, living on the sea-coast plain, while 
the Israelites, separated by their hills and valleys, 
were divided. At last, in the days of Eli, the 
Israelites were in such a desperate condition that 

98 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

they tried to gain a victory by bringing into the 
battle the ark of God. This ancient chest, con- 
taining the slabs of stone on which the Ten Com- 
mandments were engraved, had been carried 
around Jericho, they said, till the walls fell down. 
Perhaps, if it were taken into the camp, the Phil- 
istines might run away. But unfortunately, the 
Philistines fought harder than ever, and not only 
defeated the Israelties but captured the ark. 

When the news came to Eli, he fell back off the 
bench on which he sat, and the shock and the fall 
killed him, being an old man. And the ark was 
carried off to the Philistines' country and put in 
the temple of their god, Dagon. The next morn- 
ing the statue of the god was found upon the floor 
beside the ark, and a plague broke out in the city. 
The ark was carried to another city, and the plague 
followed it. At last, the Philistines put the ark on 
a cart and harnessed two cows to draw it, and they 
carried it back to the land of Israel. But the 
troubles of the Israelites continued, till it became 
plain to all wise men that it was necessary to get 
the tribes together. They must be united in order 
to defend themselves against the united Phil- 
istines. 

The wisest man in the country was named 

99 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

Samuel. He had been brought up by Eli, in the 
temple from which the ark had been taken into 
the battle. He was now an old man, having been 
for many years a leader and adviser of the people. 
One day there came to see him a youth named 
Saul. The asses on Saul's father's farm had run 
away, and Saul was looking for them. He went 
to ask Samuel where to find them. Then Samuel 
said, "Saul, you are the man for whom I have 
been waiting. The Lord has spoken in my soul 
and told me that you shall be the King of Israel." 
And he anointed him with oil. Thus Saul was 
chosen to be king, and to unite the forces of divided 

Israel. 

Then one day, when Saul came in from his 
plowing, he found a great excitement among the 
people. News had come that the Ammonites had 
laid seige to the town of Jabesh, across the Jordan, 
and had sworn either to kill all of the inhabitants 
or to put out all of their right eyes. Immediately 
Saul summoned the soldiers of Israel, and over 
they went, and drove away the Ammonites and 
saved the town. Thus the Israelites knew that 
the Lord had sent them a leader, and they made 
Saul their king, as Samuel advised them. 

When the Philistines heard that the Israelites 

100 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

had chosen a king, they came up against them. 
But the Isrealites would not fight. They ran 
away and hid themselves, as they had done be- 
fore. Only a few hundred men remained with 
Saul. So the Philistines scattered their soldiers 
about the land and began to plunder the peo- 
ple. But at Michmash, they had a fortress and a 

garrison. 

One day Saul's son, Jonathan, determined to 
attack the Philistine garrison alone. He climbed 
up the steep cliff, with only his armor-bearer with 
him, and appeared suddenly in the Philistine camp 
and rushed upon the Philistines with his sword, 
and they were thrown into a panic. One ran upon 
another. At last they all began to run, and Saul 
and his soldiers came across the ravine and 
chased them, and they pursued them in a great 
rout down the Pass of Beth-horon, where Joshua 
had chased the Canaanites. 

Now Saul, like Jephthah, had made a vow. He 
had resolved to sacrifice to God whomsoever 
should taste food that day until the sun went 
down. And Jonathan, who knew nothing of his 
father's vow, had tasted some honey. Saul was 
ready to sacrifice his son as Jephthah had sacri- 
ficed his daughter. But the people would not let 

101 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

him. They began to see that such an act could 
not be according to the will of God. 

By the victory at Michmash, the people of 
Israel were delivered from the power of the Phil- 
istines for several years. Saul had time to take 
an army down into the southern wilderness and 
fight the Amalekites, wild people who kept at- 
tacking the settlers of Canaan as the Indians kept 
attacking the settlers of Virginia and Massachu- 
setts. He defeated the Amalekites, and captured 
their king, Agag; but he lost the friendship of 
Samuel. For Samuel told Saul that the Lord 
desired him to spare neither man nor beast among 
the Amalekites; and Saul disobeyed, sparing 
sheep for a great sacrifice, and Agag to grace his 
triumph. Samuel reproved Saul, saying that the 
Lord cares more for obedience than for sacrifice. 
Then the Philistines gathered another army. 
They marshalled their soldiers in the great plain 
where Sisera had gathered his forces against Barak. 
Saul and his soldiers were on Mount Gilboa. 
Samuel was now dead, and Saul had no one to 
advise him. All his warriors were afraid. In his 
despair, Saul went to a witch at Endor, and asked 
her to call up Samuel from the dead to speak with 
him but he got no satisfaction. So the battle 

X02 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

came, and the men of Israel fled away. And Saul 
and Jonathan, who stood their ground, were killed. 
Thus the Philistines were masters again over the 
land, and the king was dead. 

The Philistines stripped off the armor of Saul 
and put it in one of their temples. His body they 
fastened to the wall of the city of Beth-Shan. 
But when the men of Jabesh heard of it, they 
arose and went all night, and took SauTs body 
from the wall, and carried it back to their own 
town and buried it. Thus they showed their 
gratitude to him who saved their lives and their 
right eyes. 



103 



THE EXPLOITS OF DAVID 

I Samuel 16-27, II Samuel 

1. David in the court of Saul. 

(1) As minstrel, I Samuel, 16. 

(2) As champion, 17. 

(3) Jonathan's friendship, Saul's jealousy, 

18-20. 

2. David as outlaw. 

(1) The adventure of the sheepmaster, 25. 

(2) The adventure of the king's spear, 26. 

3. David as king (1000 B. C.) 

(1) Successes. 

a. The defeat of the house of Saul, II 

Samuel 1-4, 9. 

b. The establishment of the house of 

David. 

(a) The taking of Jerusalem, 5 :1-11. 

(b) The defeat of the Philistines, 

5:17-25. 

(c) The bringing-up of the ark, 6. 

(d) The war with the Ammonites, 

10. 

(2) Failures 

a. The sin of Bathsheba, 11, 12. 

b. The conspiracy of Absolom, 14-19. 

c. The revolt of Sheba, 20. 

d. The famine of the Gibeonites, 21 :1-14. 

e. The famine of the census, 24. 

104 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

1X7"HEN Saul and Jonathan fell down slain on 
Mount Gilboa, the sorrow of the people 
was expressed in a hymn of lamentation which 
was written and sung by David. Nobody knew 
better how to make poetry in praise of soldiers ; for 
David was both a soldier and a poet. 

There are two accounts of the first appearance 
of David at the court of Saul. One describes him 
as a youth who knew how to play upon the harp. 
The other describes him as a youth whose arm was 
strong, and his courage high, to fight. 

King Saul had a disease of the mind. When- 
ever it came upon him, he would be like a crazy 
man. Sometimes he would be silent, saying not 
a word, and looking very sad. Sometimes he 
would be angry, catching up his spear and throw- 
ing it at anybody who might be in the way. The 
only medicine which did him any good was music. 
When they heard, then, that Jesse's son David 
was a good player on the harp they sent for him, 
and he played to the king. 

One time, in the war which was always going on 
with the Philistines, the two armies were set in 
array, and out of the Philistine army came a giant 
named Goliath, who dared the Israelites to come 
out and fight with him. But they were all afraid. 

105 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

Then came David on an errand into the camp, and 
when he saw the giant he got Saul's permission to 
go out to meet him. And as he went, he picked up 
some smooth stones, and when he came near, 
before the giant could use his sword, he hit him 
with a stone, throwing it with a sling. And that 
was the end of the giant, for the stone struck him 
in the forehead. 

The victory over the giant made David a hero 
among the people. Whenever they saw him, they 
shouted. And the king honored him, and he 
married the king's daughter, the princess Michal. 
But Saul's disease grew worse, and he became 
jealous of David, and hated him. Once he even 
sent men to kill David, and David had to climb 
down out of a window, and barely escaped with 

his life. 

So David became an outlaw, like Robin Hood. 
In the cave of Adullam he gathered a band of men 
together, and they fought with the Amalekites 
and other enemies. These wild people used to 
ride in on camels, like the Midianites, and drive 
away the farmers' cattle. David protected the 
farmers, and they paid him for his services. Thus 
he earned his living. Saul still pursued him. 

One time when Saul and his men were in tjie 

106 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

valley, and David and his men were hidden in the 
hills, David went over by night into Saul's camp, 
and came to where Saul slept, and took away his 
spear. Then he called to the king from the side 
of the hill, and when the king found that David 
had spared his life, he was sorry for all his hatred 
against him. But that was only for the moment; 
he pursued him still, till David sought refuge 
among the Philistines. There he was when the 
Philistines killed Saul at Mount Gilboa. David 
tried to get into the battle, hoping to throw the 
army of the Philistines into confusion, and save 
Saul; but the Philistines kept him away. On the 
day of the great battle, he was fighting the Ama- 
lekites. 

The first king of Israel was dead: who should 
be the second? Jonathan, Saul's son, had fallen 
beside his father, and two of his brothers with him. 
There remained a fourth son, called Ish-bosheth. 
But the men of Judah wished to have David for 
their king. So there was a war for the crown. 
Ish-bosheth had Abner for his general; David had 

Joab. 

The armies met by the pool of Gibeon. At first 
they tried to decide the battle by sending out 
twelve men on each side to fight; but all the 



107 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

twenty-four champions were killed, not one re- 
mained. So the battle was joined, and the army 
of Ish-bosheth was defeated. Presently, Abner 
and Ish-bosheth quarrelled, and Abner deserted 
to the side of David. Then Joab by treachery 
killed him. Shortly after, Ish-bosheth was mur- 
dered in his bed by two of his officers, and thus the 
cause of the house of Saul was lost. David became 

By three notable acts David strengthened his 
throne: he delivered the people from the Philis- 
tines, he captured Jerusalem and made it his 
capital city, and into Jerusalem he brought the 

ark of God. 

The Philistines, who had killed the first king of 
Israel on Mount Gilboa, immediately gathered 
their soldiers when they heard that there was a 
new king in his place. But David's adventures as 
an outlaw had taught him many things about the 
art of war, and the men who had been his com- 
panions were brave men. One of them had a duel 
with an Egyptian giant, and pulled the giant's 
spear out of his hand and ran him through with 
it; also he fought a lion in a pit on a snowy day. 
Three others, hearing David wish for a drink of 
water from the well by the gate of Bethlehem, made 

108 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

their way through the army of the Philistines and 
brought it to him. Such as these were his captains. 
So when the Philistines came up against David to 
fight the battle of the valley of Rephaim, the 
charge of the army of Israel was like the breaking 
of a dam across a strong river ; they carried every- 
thing before them. Thus at last the land had rest 
from the Philistines. 

In spite of all the wars, the city of Jerusalem, 
which was even then an ancient and famous 
fortress, was still in the hands of the men of 
Canaan, the Jebusites. It stood so securely on 
a steep hill that the Jebusites boasted that even 
the lame and blind among them could hold it 
against any enemy. But David's men climbed 
up along the water course, and took the place by 
surprise, and smote the blind and the lame and 
captured it. The city stood between the northern 
and the southern tribes, as Washington stands 
between the northern and the southern states. 
David built his palace in Jerusalem. At last, after 
their long wandering and fighting, each tribe 
making it own way and living its own life, the 
Israelites had a strong central city. 

David made Jerusalem the centre not only of 
national law but of national religion. He sent for 

109 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

the ark, which was still where the Philistines cows 
had left it after the plague in the Philistine cities. 
There was a great procession of priests and soldiers, 
with much shouting and blare of trumpets, and 
offering of sacrifices; and at last the ark, still 
safely holding the ten commandments, was set 
down, after its long wandering, beside the palace 
of the king, on the Jerusalem hill. 

A grievous famine which afflicted the people 
was explained by the Gibeonites as a punishment 
of God because Saul had broken the ancient 
promise made by Joshua; for Saul had attacked 
the Gibeonites and tried to destroy them. So 
David seized two sons of Saul and five grandsons 
and hanged them, all the seven together, and for- 
bade anybody to take them down. Thus he 
thought to please God and stop the famine, for 
David like the wisest of his people, was still 
ignorant in many ways concerning God, and con- 
cerning the world in which we live. But Rizpah, 
the mother of Saul's sons, stood night and day 
beside their bodies, keeping birds and beasts away, 
till the king took them down and buried them. 

David was now strong enough not only to defend 
the people against the Philistines, their old enemies 

in the west, but to go to war with their old enemies 

no 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

in the east. Of these, the most troublesome were 

the Ammonites, who had recovered from their 

defeat at the hands of Jephthah and of Saul. At 

first, David sent messengers of friendship, but the 

Ammonites derided them, shaving their beards in 

half and cutting off their long robes, so that they 

were ashamed to be seen. Then the Ammonites 

called the Arameans to help them against the army 

which David sent, under Joab and Abishai, to 

punish them. Joab attacked the Ammonites and 

put them to flight, and Abishai did the same to the 

Arameans. Finally, David came himself and 

destroyed the capital city of the Ammonites, and 

brought away their king's crown, heavy with gold 

and having a precious jewel in it* this he put on 

his own head. 

It was during this war that David committed 

a great crime. He saw in Jerusalem a woman 

named Bathsheba, who pleased him greatly; but 

she had a husband who was a soldier in the king's 

army. And David told Joab to put Bathsheba's 

husband in the front rank of the battle. There he 

was killed by the Ammonites and David took 

Bathsheba for his wife. There was a brave prophet 

named Nathan who rebuked the king. He told 

him plainly that he had broken two of the great 

in 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

laws of God: he had committed adultery and 
murder. Nathan made David see the dreadfulness 
of his sin, and he was very sorry. The happiness 
of his splendid life was gone. 

For two of David's sons quarreled, and one of 
them killed the other. And presently Absolom, 
the son who killed his brother, conspired against 
his father. Absolom probably knew that David 
intended to make Bathsheba's son, Solomon, king 
in his place, and he tried to become king himself. 
He gathered men together and marched with so 
strong a force against Jerusalem that David fled 
before him. With a few faithful followers the king 
fled over the Jordan. But one of the counsellors of 
Absolom was a secret friend of David, and he per- 
suaded Absolom to wait and not attack the king 
in the disadvantage of his weakness. So David 
was able to assemble men about him. Then there 
was a battle, Absolom leading one side and David's 
general, Joab, leading the other. And Joab found 
Absolom in the woods, amongthe thicktrees, caught 
fast, and he killed him. So the war was over, but 
the death of his son was a bitter sorrow to the king. 
At last, in his old age, another son, Adonijah, 
tried to get the crown from Solomon. Adonijah 

made many friends, and invited them to a great 

112 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

dinner, and there they hailed him as the king. 
They cried "Long live the King!" But the news 
came to David, and immediately he set Solomon 
upon his throne. So that conspiracy failed. Then 
David died, and Solomon reigned in his stead. 



113 



THE GLORY OF SOLOMON 

I Kings 1-11. 

1. The conspiracy of Adonijah 1, 2. 

2. The wisdom of Solomon 3:2-28, 4:29-34 

3. The splendor of Solomon. 

(1) The court, 4. 

(2) The temple. 

a. The building, 6. 

b. The dedication, 8. 

(3) The palace, 7. 

(4) The visit of the Queen of Sheba, 10. 

4. The troubles of Solomon, 11. 

(1) The idols of the foreign wives. 

(2) Hadad of Edom and Rezin of Damascus. 

(3) Jeroboam, the overseer. 

/^NE night King Solomon had a dream, and in 
^ the dream he was told that he might have 
whatever he wished, and he wished to be wise. 
The dream came true, and Solomon was the wis- 
est of men. Thus his power and his wealth and his 
kingdom increased. 

One time two women came to Solomon bringing 
one baby. One mother said, " The baby is mine"; 
the other mother said, "The baby is mine." And 
Solomon said, "Let the child be cut in two, and 

114 




The Judgment of Solomon 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW. KINGDOM 

give half to one mother and half to the other." 
Then the true mother cried out, "No! let her have 
it rather than kill it." So the wise king knew to 
which of the women the child belonged. 

Solomon put Adonijah to death, who had con- 
spired to take the throne; and Joab also, the great 
general of David, who had taken Adonijah's part. 
He gathered about him a multitude of courtiers, 
so many that every day they ate so much bread 
that there was need of six hundred bushels of fine 
flour and twelve hundred bushels of meal to make 
it, and so much meat that they killed ten fat oxen 
and twenty meadow-fed oxen, and a hundred 
sheep, and nobody knows how many fatted fowls. 
These provisions were supplied by the people. 
Solomon divided the land into twelve parts, and 
each part was responsible for the 'food of the court 
for one month. 

Not only did the people bring to Solomon day 
by day their wheat and their cattle, but they 
worked for him, cutting down great cedar trees in 
the forests of Lebanon, getting out blocks of stone 
from the quarries, and sailing ships on the Red 
Sea. The ships went to the lands of the far east 
and came back with gold, and red sandal-wood, 
and precious stones, and ivory and apes and pea- 

115 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

cocks; thus Solomon grew very rich. The blocks 
of stone and the cedar trees he used in making 
splendid buildings,— a palace and a temple. 

The temple of Solomon was one of the most 
famous buildings of the ancient world. Outside, 
before the door, was a great altar cut in the rock 
of the hill; here were offered sacrifices of sheep 
and oxen. Beside this altar was a vast bowl of 
brass which held sixteen thousand gallons of 
water; and there were ten smaller bowls in which 
the water was carried about that the priests might 
wash their hands. The entrance to the porch of 
the temple was between two lofty brazen pillars. 
The temple had two rooms, the outer room, called 
the Holy Place, contained a table on which were 
laid twelve loaves of bread, one for each of the 
tribes of Israel; and beside the table was a candle- 
stick with seven branches. The inner room, called 
the Holy of Holies, contained two winged figures, 
each of them almost three times as tall as a man, 
and between the two, under their outstretched 
wings, was the ark of God. The walls of the 
temple were of massive stone, lined with cedar. 
The men who superintended the cutting of the 
stone and the placing of the cedar were Phoeni- 
cians, sent to David by Hiram, king of Tyre. , 

116 



FOUNDATION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

Besides the temple was the palace. One of the 
rooms had so many cedar pillars that it was called 
the House of the Forest of Lebanon. In another 
room stood the king's throne, made of gold and 
ivory, with two carved lions beside it, and twelve 
lions on the steps which led to it. Solomon's guard 
had shields of gold, and all the cups on Solomon's 
table were of pure gold. 

But as the wealth of Solomon increased, he 
ceased to be as wise as he was at the beginning. 
He married many foreign wives, as was the way 
with kings in those days, in order to ally himself in 
friendship with foreign lands. And each wife 
brought her religion with her, and the king built 
shrines for all these foreign gods; for Chemosh, 
the god of Moab, and for Milcom, the god of Am- 
nion, and for Astarte, the goddess of Sidon. He 
forgot the word of the Lord who said, "Thou shalt 
have no other gods but me." 

Then enemies arose against the king. The 
Edomites and the Midianites and the Arameans 
of Damascus troubled him. But his chief enemy 
was one of his own officers. Jeroboam, a man of the 
tribe of Ephraim, was in charge of the men of his 
own tribe who were building the king's palace. 
And the men rebelled against the king. They 

117 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

protested against the government of Solomon 
which was altogether for his own glory and not for 
the good of the people, and against their own hard 
labor and poor pay. Jeroboam was their leader. 
One day, as Jeroboam was in the field, clad in a 
new cloak, the prophet Abijah met him, and 
Abijah took the cloak of Jeroboam and tore it into 
twelve pieces, and ten of the pieces he gave to 
Jeroboam, saying, "The Lord shalt take the king- 
dom out of the hand of Solomon, and of the twelve 
tribes you shall have ten." This Solomon heard, 
and Jeroboam had to flee for his life to Egypt. 

Thus the last days of Solomon were days of 
trouble. He made for himself a great name and a 
mighty kingdom, he gathered riches about him 
and lived splendidly; but he oppressed his people 
and they hated him. Then he died, and his son 
Rehoboam reigned in his stead. 



118 



THE REVOLUTION 

I Kings 12-14 

1. The revolt of the ten tribes, 12:1-24. 

2. The Kingdom of Israel: Jeroboam (937-915) 

(1) The golden calves, 12:25-33. 

(2) The altar in Bethel, 13. 

(3) The curse of Abijah, 14:1-20. 

3. The kingdom of Judah: Rehoboam (937-920) 

The invasion of Shishak 14:21-31. 

With the division of the Hebrew kingdom, we begin to 
come upon definite dates. Up to that time the common 
custom of all nations was to reckon from the first year of 
each reigning king. In the eighth century, however, the 
Greeks took the year which we now call 776 B. C. and called 
it the Frst Olympiad; i. e. the date of the first Olympic 
games. The Romans took 753 B. C. and called it the year 
of the Foundation of the City; i. e. the date of the founding 
of Rome by Romulus. Assyrian calendars have been dis- 
covered containing records of two hundred and fifty years; 
in one of these years was a total eclipse of the sun which has 
been calculated as occurring in 763. By this, all these years 
are dated. Thus we learn that the Assyrians had dealings 
with Ahab, king of Israel, in 854, and with Jehu, king of 
Israel, in 842. Sargon destroyed Samaria in 722. Sen- 
nacherib besieged Jerusalem in 701. 

119 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

T> EHOBOAM, the new king, had none of the 
wisdom of his father. He went to meet the 
assembled tribes at Shechem that they might ac- 
cept him as their ruler, according to the custom. 
Thus Saul had become king, and then David, and 
then Solomon, amidst the shouts of the people. 
But the people waited until Rehoboam should tell 
them what kind of a king he meant to be. They 
said, "Your father was very hard upon us; his 
yoke was heavier than we could bear, he made us 
labor much and paid us little. What do you pro- 
pose to do?" 

Then Rehoboam consulted first with the older 
men, who had been his father's friends, but who 
had known his father's faults, and they advised 
him to give back to the people their old rights 
and liberties. After that, he consulted with the 
younger men, and they very foolishly advised him, 
in their ignorance, to follow Solomon's example. 
And Rehoboam took the counsel of the younger 
men. He answered the people saying, "My father 
made your yoke heavy; I will make it heavier. 
He chastised you with whips; I will chastise you 

with scourges." 

Then there was a great cry, but nobody shouted 
"God save the king." Instead of that, the word 

120 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

was "To your tents, Israel." And, even as 
Abijah had predicted, ten tribes refused to have 
the son of Solomon for king. There was left to 
Rehoboam only the tribe of Judah, and the little 
tribe of Benjamin. Thus the Israelites were 
divided and became two kingdoms. 

Rehoboam fled to Jerusalem, and there reigned 
over the kingdom of Judah. Not only had he lost 
the larger and better part of the lands of his father, 
but the Egyptians came up and plundered him, 
and carried away the golden shields of Solomon. 
Rehoboam put brass ones in their places. 

As for the northern tribes, they called Jeroboam 
to be ruler over the kingdom of Israel. He made 
Shechem his capital and in order to keep his 
people from going to Jerusalem to worship God, 
he set up golden calves or bulls, like the winged 
figures in the Holy of Holies, one at Bethel in the 
south of his country, the other at Dan in the north. 
Thus the two kingdoms were divided not only in 
government but in religion. 

To the men of Judah, the men of Israel seemed 
to have rebelled both against the house of David 
and the church of God. 

It was reported in Jerusalem that a man of God 

from Judah rebuked King Jeroboam at his altar 

121 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

in Bethel, and that when the king put forth his 
hand to seize the prophet, his arm was paralyzed, 
and the altar was broken. 

It was reported also that when Jeroboam's son 
fell sick, the queen went to beg prayers of the old 
prophet Abijah, the same who had torn the cloak 
of Jeroboam. She went in disguise, but Abijah 
knew her, and as he had blessed Jeroboam in the 
old days so now he cursed him with a bitter curse. 
The child, he said, should die, and all the descend- 
ants of Jeroboam should come to evil ends; dogs 
should eat their dead bodies in the city, and birds 

in the field. 

Nothing was too bad to be believed concerning 

Jeroboam in Jerusalem. 

Nevertheless, Jeroboam reigned well over the 
northern kingdom for twenty years. By far the 
greater part of the empire of Saul and David and 
Solomon was under his rule. The land was fertile 
in the sunny valleys. The ancient highways be- 
tween Egypt and Assyria lay across it, and brought 
the people into relation with the trade of the world; 
and they increased in wealth and power. 

The southern kingdom had two advantages over 
the northern. One was the possession of the 
ancient capital, Jerusalem; the other was the 

122 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

peaceful descent of the crown from father to son, 
in the line of the family of David. The northern 
kingdom, having its beginning in a revolution, 
suffered from a series of revolutions. Jeroboam's 
son, after a reign of two years, was killed by 
Baasha. Baasha's son was killed by Zimri, the 
commander of his chariots. Zimri, after a reign 
of seven days, was beseiged by Omri, commander 
of the army, and burned in the ruins of his palace. 
Omri is remembered for the wisdom with which 
he chose a new capital for the kingdom of Israel, 
building on a hill the strong city of Samaria. After 
him came Ahab. 



123 



ELIJAH AND ELISHA 

i Kings 15-11 Kings 9 

1. The ministry of Elijah. 

(1) The dry brook and the cruse of oil, I Kings, 

17. 

(2) The prophet of the Lord and Baal's 

prophets, 18. 

(3) The still small voice, 19. 

(4) Naboth's vineyard, 21. 

(5) The prophet and the captains, II Kings 1. 

(6) The chariot of fire, 2. 

2. The ministry of Elisha. 

(1) The conquest of Moab, 3. 

(2) The woman of Shunem, 4. 

(3) The leprosy of Naaman, 5. 

(4) The seige of Samaria, 6, 7. 

(5) Elisha sends Hazael to kill the King of 

Damascus, 8:7-15. 

(6) Elisha sends Jehu to kill the King of Israel, 

9. 

A HAB greatly strengthened the northern king- 
dom by making friends with three import- 
antneighbors : with the Syrians of Damascus in the 
east, with the kingdom of Judah in the south, and 
with the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon in the 
west. 

124 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

He had inherited from his father Omri a war 
with the people of Damascus. The king of that 
city, Benhadad, was so strong and confident that 
he sent word to Ahab that he was coming to 
Samaria to carry away all the gold and silver, and 
whatever else he liked. But Ahab went out to 
meet him, and drove him back. This he did twice. 
The second time Ahab not only defeated the army 
of Damascus, but captured the king, Benhadad. 
Having him thus in his power he made him promise 
to give up certain cities which he had taken from 
Israel, and not to fight against Israel any more. 
Thus he made peace with Damascus, and opened 
the great roads of travel and trade toward the 
east. 

i War had been going on with the kingdom of 
Judah most of the time since the Revolution. But 
Ahab made peace with Jerusalem by giving his 
daughter, Athaliah, in marriage to the king of 
Judah, Jehoram. 

Ahab himself married Jezebel, the daughter of 
the king of Tyre. Thus he made peace with the 
Phoenicians, and opened the great roads of trade 
and travel toward the west. 

By these alliances Ahab became a great king. 
The people prospered and grew rich. They built 

125 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

cities, filled with fine houses. They sent out 
caravans laden with wheat, and caravans came in 
from Damascus and from Tyre and from Jeru- 
salem bringing precious things for sale. It seemed 
as if the golden days of Solomon had returned. 

But Ahab repeated not only the splendors but 
the sins of Solomon. One bad thing which he did 
was to oppress his people, making himself rich at 
their expense. Another bad thing was to build 
beside the altar of the Lord a temple to Baal, the 
god of the Phoenicians. These sins were suggested 
by Jezebel, his wife. She wished him to be the 
kind of king in Samaria which her father was in 
Tyre. And she brought her own religion with her. 
The temple of Baal was great and splendid, and 
hundreds of priests ministered in it. As for the 
priests of the Lord, Jezebel hated them, and tried 
to drive them out of the land. 

The man who saved the liberty of Israel from 
the tyranny of Ahab, and the religion of Israel 
from the idolatry of Jezebel, was Elijah. Elijah 
was a prophet from the desert. His hair and beard 
were long and flowing, and his cloak was the skin 
of a camel, and he had a long staff in his hand. 

Ahab wished to have more ground for his 
garden by the palace in Samaria, but the place 

126 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

which he desired was owned by a man named 
Naboth, who had a vineyard there, and he would 
not sell it, even to the king. Then Jezebel got 
men to bear false witness against Naboth, saying 
that he had broken some of the laws; and Naboth 
was arrested and tried and condemned, and stoned 
to death. "Now," said Jezebel to Ahab, "you 
may take the vineyard. Naboth is dead." But 
Elijah went to meet Ahab, and found him in the 
vineyard, and he called the curse of God upon him 
because he had done that thing. He made him see 
that God is against all such robbery and murder, 
and that He must be obeyed even by the greatest 
kings. 

One time there was a famine in the land, the 
ground was dry, and nothing would grow in the 
fields. And the people prayed to Baal to help 
them. They felt that Baal was really the god of 
the land, and could make the rain fall and the sun 
shine as he pleased, and that their own Lord God 
was not so mighty. They had not yet come to 
know that there is one God over all the earth and 
sky. At last, the king called a great assembly on 
Mount Carmel to pray for rain; and the priests 
of Baal were there, four hundred and fifty of 
them, but on the Lord's side was Elijah only. So 

127 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

they prayed; first the priests of Baal, crying aloud 
and cutting themselves with knives, but getting 
no reply; and then Elijah. The story of Elijah's 
prayer became one of the famous memories of 
Israel. Men said that as he prayed the lightning 
began to flash, and the thunder began to roll, and 
the sky became black with clouds. And the people 
cried, "The Lord, he is the God! The Lord, he is 
the God!" And the rain fell. 

All this, however, made no difference with 
Jezebel. She sought to kill Elijah, so that he had 
to flee for his life. Away he went into the wilder- 
ness of the south, in deep despair, and sitting down 
under a juniper tree he desired to die, feeling that 
he was of no use in the world. Thence he went 
into the desert of the east, to the land where Moses 
had gone up into Mount Sinai to meet God. And 
as Elijah waited on the mountain, there was a 
great and strong wind, and then an earthquake, 
and then a fire; and, after the wind and the earth- 
quake and the fire, a still, small voice, speaking in 
Elijah's soul. Thus he knew that the Lord was on 
his side. And the still, small voice told him to call 
Elisha to be a prophet to follow in his steps, and 
to anoint Jehu to be king over Israel that he might 
destroy the religion of Baal. 

128 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

So Elijah called Elisha, meeting him in the field 
where he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, 
and casting his mantle over his shoulders. And 
Elisha became a prophet. As for Elijah, men 
loved to tell in after days how he was taken up 
into heaven riding in a chariot of fire. 

Also Ahab ended his life in a chariot, but very 
differently. For war arose again between the men of 
Damascus and the men of Samaria, and Ahab sent 
for his neighbor Jehoshaphat of Jerusalem to help 
him. Now, before the battle, the king of Israel and 
the king of Judah sat each on his throne in the gate 
of Samaria and called the four hundred prophets of 
the Lord who were in that place to counsel them. 
The kings said, " Shall we go to war, or not?" 
And all the prophets said, "Go and prosper." 
But there stood up against them one honest 
prophet named Micaiah, who said, "I saw all 
Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep having no 
shepherd." Nevertheless, the kings disregarded 
the warning of Micaiah, and went to battle with 
Benhadad. And the battle went against the two 
kings. Jehoshaphat fled for his life, and Ahab was 
wounded with an arrow. He stood in his chariot 
and tried to rally his soldiers, but as the sun went 
down he died, and the day was lost. 

129 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

Now Elisha had taken the place of Elijah. 
Instead of living like his master in the hills and 
deserts, he dwelt among the people. One of his 
homes was with a man and his wife who furnished 
a chamber for him, providing a bed and a table 
and a stool and a candlestick. One time their 
little son fell sick, crying, " My head ! My head ! " 
and they sent for Elisha, and he found the boy 
lying as one dead, and he prayed and brought him 
back to life. 

One time a captain of the king of Damascus fell 
sick with leprosy. And there was a little Israelite 
girl in his family, who had been brought away 
captive in the war between Damascus and Sa- 
maria; and she said, "If my master, Naaman, 
were to go to Israel, there is a prophet there who 
could recover him." So Naaman went, and came 
to the house of Elisha, and he sent him to wash in 
the river Jordan. And as he washed, he was 
cleansed. 

One time, the men of Damascus fought so hard 
against the men of Samaria that they shut up the 
city of Samaria, and nobody could go out or come 
in, and the people in the city began to be very 
hungry. At last, when they were in danger of 
starvation, Elisha said, "We shall have food to- 

130 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

morrow." And that night, four men said one to 
another, "If we stay here we shall die, and if we 
go out to the camp of the enemy and ask for food 
they can do no worse than put us to death. Let 
us take the risk." But when they came to the 
camp, it was empty. A sudden fear had fallen on 
the men of Damascus, and they had fled away. 

At last, the time came for Elisha to do the 
errand which had been entrusted to him by 
Elijah. Joram, the son of Ahab, was now the king 
of Israel, and Ahaziah, the son of Ahab's daughter, 
Athaliah, was king of Judah. The war was still in 
progress against the Syrians of Damascus. Joram 
had been wounded; Ahaziah had come to see himf 
and the two kings were in the fortress of Jezreel. 
The captain in the field was Jehu. To Jehu 
Elisha sent a messenger, who anointed him with 
oil, as Samuel had anointed Saul, crying, "Thus 
saith the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed thee 
king over the people of the Lord." 

Then Jehu told his soldiers, and they shouted, 
"Jehu is king!" And Jehu set out for Jezreel, 
driving furiously up the long valley from the 
Jordan. The two kings came out to meet him, and 
he killed them both, shooting them with arrows. 
Jezebel looked out upon him from a window, and 

131 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

he called to men inside to throw her down. So she 
fell and died, and he trod her under the feet of 
his horses. Then he gathered the priests of Baal 
together as for a solemn assembly in Baal's temple, 
and he sent his soldiers in, and they locked the 
doors, and when they came out not one of Baal's 
priests was left alive. In this fierce and bloody 
manner, according to the customs of those old 
times, the contention between the two religions, 
of the Lord and of Baal, was decided. 



132 



KINGS, NORTH AND SOUTH 

I Kings 15-11 Kings 14. 

Judah Israel 

(The House of David) (The House of Jeroboam) 

Rehoboam (937-920) Jeroboam (937-915) 

Abijam (920-917) Nadab (915-914) 

I Kings 15:1-8 I Kings 15:25-27 

Asa (917-876) Baasha (914-890) 

15 :8-33 usurper 15 :27-16 :7 

Asa fights with Baasha and buys the aid of the Syrians. 

Elah. Zimri. (890-889) 16:8-20. 
(The House of Omri) 
Omri (889-875) 
Builds Samaria 16 :20-28 
Jehoshaphat (876-851) Ahab (875-853) 

16:29-22:40 
War with Syria, 20. 

Jehoshaphat joins Ahab against Syrians, 22 

Ahaziah (853-852) 

22:51-11 Kings 1. 
Joram (852-842) 

8:28-9:37. 

Jehoshaphat joins Joram against Moabites, 3. 
Joram (851-843) 

8:16-24. 
Ahaziah (843-842) 

133 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

Ahaziah and Joram of Israel killed by Jehu 8 :25-9 :27 

(The House of Jehu) 
Athaliah (842-836) Jehu (842-815) 

usurper, 11. usurper, 10. 

Joash (836-796) Jehoahaz (815-798) 

Repairs temple, 12 Subject to Syria, 13:1-9 

Amaziah (796-789) Joash (798-782) 

Amaziah is defeated in war with Joash, 14. 
Uzziah and Jotham (789-735) Jeroboam II (782-741) 
15:1-7 14:23-29 

Forty years of peace and prosperity. 

A MONG the rulers of the two kingdoms, north 
and south, four are especially to be remem- 
bered; in the kingdom of Israel, Jehu, and at the 
sametime in the kingdom of Judah, Athaliah; also 
in the kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam II, and at the 
same time in the kingdom of Judah, Uzziah. 
Athaliah, like Jehu, was a usurper. When she 
heard that Jehu had killed her son Ahaziah, she 
seized the throne of Judah. Jehu had begun his 
reign by killing all of the royal family of Israel; 
Athaliah tried to follow his example. She suc- 
ceeded in killing all her grandchildren, the princes 
of Judah, except one. Little Joash, Ahaziah's son, 
was hidden by his aunt and his nurse, and the 
queen did not find him. Thus he lived in hiding 
for six years. Then a brave priest, Jehoida, 
brought certain trusted rulers and captains % into 

134 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

the temple, and showed them the king's son. And 
on an appointed day, when all was ready, the 
little prince was crowned in the temple, all the 
soldiers standing about him with swords drawn, 
shouting, "God save the king!" And Athaliah 
heard the noise and came into the temple, and 
when she saw the armed men, and the prince with 
the crown upon his head, she cried " Treason! 
Treason!" But all the people were on the side of 
the young king. So Athaliah was put to death, 
and the temple of Baal in which she had wor- 
shipped, like her mother Jezebel, was broken down. 

The most prosperous of the kings of Israel was 
Jeroboam II. Also prosperous among the kings 
of Judah was Uzziah. These two reigned in the 
first half of the eighth century before Christ, each 
of them for about forty years. A great part of 
their peace and prosperity was due to the fact that 
their old enemies, the Syrians of Damascus, were 
attacked by invaders from the east. The new foes 
were the Assyrians. 

The world-power with which the Israelites had 
thus far been acquainted was Egypt, at the 
western corner of the Semitic triangle, where their 
fathers had been slaves. But now Assyria, at the 
eastern corner, began to push its boundaries to- 

135 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

ward the Mediterranean. Already, as their own 
inscriptions show, the Assyrians had defeated 
Ahab, and had received tribute from Jehu. They 
appeared afar off on the horizon like the first black 
clouds of a great storm. On they came, in fierce 
and mighty invasion. Their attack fell first upon 
the kingdom of Damascus. 

Thus Jeroboam II and Uzziah, being delivered 
from the fear of the Syrians, and understanding 
only very dimly that the same destruction was 
coming on them also, extended their boundaries 
and their markets, and restored again for the 
moment an empire which if it had been united 
would have been even greater than Solomon's. 

It was in the reign of these two kings that the 
first books of the Bible were written. Two pro- 
phets, Amos and Hosea, not only preached sermons 
against the evils of the kingdom of Israel, but 
wrote them down in the form in which we have 

them now. 

Already there were songs and psalms, some of 
them older than the time of David ; and there were 
proverbs, as old as the time of Solomon. But 
neither psalms nor proverbs had been gathered 
together into books. It is probable that the lives 
of Elijah and Elisha had been written, and that 

136 



DIVISION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

there were accounts of the reigns of Saul and David 
and Solomon, and of the Revolution, and of the 
events after the Revolution, but these were not 
yet collected to make the books of Samuel and 
Kings. And there were stories of the ancient 
time, and laws, some written and some unwritten. 
It is likely that in the days of Jeroboam II and of 
Uzziah, good men in the kingdom of Israel and 
good men in the kingdom of Judah were making 
the collections of these memorable stories and 
records which were afterwards put together to 
form the books of Genesis and Exodus and others. 
As yet, however, there was no Bible. The 
materials for a Bible were many of them at hand, 
like the boards and beams and bricks to make a 
house, but they were not built into our Bible book. 
Amos was the first book of the Bible to be written; 
Hosea was the second. 



137 



THE INVASION OF THE ASSYRIANS 

II Kings 15-20 

Judafa Israel 

Ahaz (735-715) Zechariah (741) 

16:1-20 15:8-12 

Shallum (741) 

Usurper, 15:10-15 
Menahem (741-737) 
Assyrians take tribute 
15:14-22 
Pekahiah (737) 

15:23-26 
Pekah (736-734) 

Assyrians invade 15:27-31 
Ahab being besieged by Pekah buys the aid of the 
Assyrians. 
Hezekiah (715-686) Hosea (734-722) 

18, 19, 20 Assyrians destroy the 

Kingdom of Israel 17:1-41. 
Assyrians besiege Jerusalem (701) 

TEROBOAM II was the last strong king of Israel. 
His son was murdered after a reign of six 
months; the man who murdered him reigned only 
onemonth. The land was filled with disorder. One 
king, indeed, ruled for several years, but his son was 
killed after a brief reign. Pekah, who thus seized the 

138 



DESTRUCTION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

crown by killing the king, joined with Rezin, king 
of Damascus, in defying Assyria. The Assyrians 
kept sending to Damascus and to Samaria, de- 
manding money, and Pekah and Rezin determined 

not to pay it. 

In order, however, to defy Assyria successfully, 
they must have the help of their neighbors. So 
they sent to Jerusalem, to Ahaz, king of Judah, to 
ask him to come with his army and join their 
armies. But Ahaz would not do it. And when 
they tried to make him do it, and began to march 
their armies down to attack Jerusalem, Ahaz sent 
messengers to Assyria, with a great amount of gold 
and silver from the palace and the temple, and 
said, "All this will I give, if you will save me from 
the armies of Pekah and Rezin." 

Now the king of Assyria at that time was Tig- 
lath-pileser. He was a strong ruler, and it was his 
desire to conquer the world. He had invented a 
remarkable plan whereby, when he conquered a 
nation, it should stay conquered. His plan was to 
remove a great portion of the people of the de- 
feated nation, and settle them in other parts of his 
vast empire, and bring in new people in their place. 
Thus a conquered kingdom lost its very existence. 

Tiglath-pileser took the treasures which Ahaz 



139 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

sent and marched his tremendous army against 
the kingdom of Damascus and against the king- 
dom of Israel. That was the end of the power of 
Damascus. The city was destroyed and the 
people carried into exile. It was the beginning of 
the end of the power of Israel. A great number of 
the people were taken into Assyria, and the land 
became an Assyrian province. 

Some years later, the people ventured to rebel 
against their masters, hoping, but in vain, for help 
from Egypt. Then the Assyrians, under Sargon 
their king, completed the destruction of the nation. 
They pulled down the city of Samaria, after a long 
seige. They carried away thousands of the people 
into their own lands beside the Euphrates and the 
Tigris. Some settled here, some there, and lost 
both their nationality and their religion. They 
became like their victorious neighbors, into whose 
families they married, and whose customs they 

adopted. 

New people were brought from Assyria to settle 
the land from which the men of Israel had been 
taken. But at first they were so few that the lions 
attacked them. Out of the woods around the 
ruined cities came the lions. At last, the new 
colonists said, "It is because we are not worship- 

140 



DESTRUCTION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

ping the God of the Land." And they sent for 
priests from among the exiled Israelites to come 
back and teach the Assyrian colonists the religion 
of the God of the Land. Thus they settled down 
together, the new Assyrian settlers and such as 
were left of the Israelites, and their religion was 
partly Israelite and partly Assyrian. They were 
called Samaritans. 

Thus the kingdom of Israel was ended, after a 
history of about two hundred years. The date of 
the destruction of Samaria is 722 B.C. The reign 
of Jeroboam I, by whom the kingdom was founded; 
the reign of Ahab, who strengthened it by alliances 
with Damascus, with Jerusalem and with Tyre; 
the reign of Jehu, the usurper, who brought to a 
tragic end the worship of Baal; the reign of Jero- 
boam II whose power recalled the days of Solomon; 
and the fall of Samaria at the hands of the Assy- 
rians, are the chief chapters of its history. 



141 



THE INVASION OF THE CHALDEANS 

II Kings 21-25 

Manasseh (686-641) 

The great apostasy 21 :1-18 

Amon (641-639) 21 :19-26 

Josiah (639-608) 

The great reformation 22 :l-23 :30 
Defeated and killed by Necho of Egypt 

Jehoahaz (608) 

Dethroned by Necho 23 :30-33 

Jehoiakim (608-597) 

Chaldeans take Nineveh (606), defeat Egyptians at 
Carchemish (605), and become masters of Judah 
23:24-24:7 

Jehoiachin (597) 

Chaldeans take Jerusalem, and carry away first com- 
pany of exiles 24:8-16 25:27-30 

Zedekiah (597-586) 

Chaldeans destroy Jerusalem, and carry away second 
company of exiles, 24:17-25:21 

Gedaliah made governor of remnant in Judah; killed by 
Ishmael who flees to Egypt 25 :22-26. 

T) Y his great gift of gold and silver to the king 
of Assyria, Ahaz of Judah had brought about 
the destruction of his enemies of Damascus and 
Samaria, and for the moment had gained peace. 
But trouble was near at hand. Sennacherib be- 

142 



DESTRUCTION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

came ruler of Assyria, and made war with Egypt 
and Ethiopia. He brought his army down over 
the ancient war-path by the sea, and turned aside 
to destroy Jerusalem. He sent an officer to de- 
mand the surrender of the city. That was in 701, 
and the king was Hezekiah. The king and his 
people were in the utmost fear. Nothing but 
desolation and death seemed possible. 

Outside the city a great prophet named Micah 
was declaring that the distress of Jerusalem was a 
punishment for the wickedness of its inhabitants. 
But within the city, a greater prophet named 
Isaiah, while, like Micah, he rebuked the sins of 
the people, nevertheless declared that the city 
should be saved. Thus he prayed to God. Then 
one morning, the army of Sennacherib suddenly 
marched away. Whether they had news of trouble 
in their own country, or whether a plague broke 
out among them, is unknown. Anyhow, away 
they went, and the city was delivered. 

The great deliverance, and the preaching of 
Micah and Isaiah, made Hezekiah a reformer. 
One thing he did was to take a brazen serpent 
which was kept in the temple, and which they said 
Moses had made in the desert, and break it in 
pieces. The like he did also to other idols. 

143 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

But Hezekiah died, and Manasseh his son 
reigned in his stead, and all this reformation ceased. 
The simple and moral religion of the Israelites had 
been affected all along by the ceremonial and im- 
moral religion of the Canaanites. There were 
ancient altars on the high hills and under the great 
trees, and although the people who prayed at these 
places said their prayers to the God of Israel, they 
thought about God as the Canaanites had thought 
about their gods, and believed that what God 
cares for is a splendid service, with singing and 
lights and incense. They forgot that what God 
cares for most is a good life. 
i When Manasseh became king, he encouraged 
all this. Besides the altar of the God of Israel, he 
built altars to the sun and moon and stars. Even 
in the temple, he set up a sacred pole, such as stood 
by shrines of Baal. And the prophets of the true 
religion who protested against these evils, he 
persecuted. It seemed for a long time as if the- 
religion of the Lord God had perished out of the 
land, and the religion of the Canaanites, or of the 
Assyrians, had taken its place. 

Early, however, in the reign of Josiah, a book 
was found in the temple. It contained chapters 
of laws, declaring the will of God. These laws 



DESTRUCTION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

forbade all the evils which had been practised in 
the days of Manasseh and which were still done 
by many of the people. This book now forms the 
middle part of Deuteronomy — a name which 
means a second giving of the law. It was the 
ancient law of Moses, brought together out of old 
records and memories, and applied to the needs 
of that day. Some things it omitted, as of use 
only in the life of a desert people; other things it 
added, as the will of God had been revealed by 
experience. It was the law of Moses, rewritten by 
men who saw that the evils of Manasseh were 
against the will of God, and who said so in this 
way. It was an explanation of the ancient law in 
the light of the teachings of Amos and Hosea, of 
Micah and Isaiah. It taught the love of God, but 
it showed at the same time that God is against all 
wrong, and that He will certainly punish all wrong- 
doers. Also, in consequence of the superstitions 
of the shrines on the hills and under the trees, it 
forbade all worship in these places, and declared 
that the only true altar of God was in the temple 
at Jerusalem. 

The result of the finding of this book was a 
reformation. Everything that the book said, 
Josiah tried to do. In this he was assisted by a 

145 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

good priest, Hilkiah, and by earnest prophets, 
one of whom was Zephaniah, and another was 
Jeremiah. 

Meanwhile, a new power was rising in the east. 
Assyria, which had ruled the world, was meeting 
mighty enemies. When Zephaniah wrote, it 
seemed likely that the Assyrians would be over- 
thrown by the Scythians, whose wild armies were 
coming down from the north. But the victorious 
enemy came from the south. The Chaldeans, 
whose capital city was Babylon, came up and 
conquered the Assyrians, whose capital city was 
Nineveh. The prophet Nahum heard of their 
triumphant march and rejoiced to think that 
great Nineveh should at last be brought to the 
ground. But the prophet Habakkuk who wrote 
after the destruction of Nineveh, was dismayed to 
find that the victorious Chaldeans were coming 
on into the west. 

Up marched the Chaldeans along the eastern 
side of the Semitic triangle, and up marched the 
Egyptians along the western side. Thus the 
Chaldean army under Nebuchadnezzar met, at 
Carchemish, the Egyptian army under Necho, 
and the two fought for the ownership of the world. 
And the Babylonians won the battle. Then 

146 



DESTRUCTION OF THE HEBREW KINGDOM 

Nebuchadnezzar continued his march, and came 
at last to the gates of Jerusalem. 

The city was not only in terror but in mourning, 
for Josiah had gone out with his army to attack 
the Egyptians on their way to Carchemish, and 
had been defeated and killed. Thus died the last 
great king of Judah. 

Nebuchadnezzar was content for the time to 
take possession of Jerusalem and Judah. The 
land was left to be governed by its own kings. 
But the kings were weak, and foolishly trusted 
in the power of Egypt to help them against Baby- 
lon. This confidence Jeremiah stoutly opposed. 
The prophet was put in the stocks, and in prison, 
and his life was constantly in peril from those who 
would make friends with Egypt. At last, Jehoi- 
akim, king of Judah, rebelled against Babylon, 
and Nebuchadnezzar came and took Jerusalem, 
and carried away into exile in Babylonia the chief 
citizens and chief soldiers of the land. 

Even after that, Jerusalem under Zedekiah 
rebelled again, still trusting in the strength of 
Egypt. This time Nebuchadnezzar destroyed 
the city. He stripped the temple and the palace 
of all the treasures which remained. He broke 
down the walls and houses. The king's sons he 

147 



THE ERA OF THE KINGS 

killed before his eyes, then blinded him and carried 
him to Babylon. With him he led into exile most 
of the remaining people of Judah. Some fled to 
Egypt ; some were hidden in the farms and forests ; 
some were too insignificant to take away. But 
the nation was removed out of its place. The 
exiles of Judah were settled in the neighborhood 

of Babylon. 

Thus the kingdom of Judah was destroyed; the 
date is 586. The reign of Rehoboam, in whose 
time occurred the Revolution; the excellent 
reigns of Asa and Jehoshaphat, who followed him; 
the reign of Athaliah the usurper; the long peace 
in the days of Uzziah; the reign of Ahaz, who 
saw the Assyrians destroy the kingdom of Israel, 
and of Hezekiah, who saw the Assyrians at the 
gates of Jerusalem; the heathern reaction under 
Manasseh; the reformation under Josiah; and the 
fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Chaldeans 
are the chief chapters of its history. 



148 



THE ERA OF THE FOREIGN RULERS 

Ezra, Nehemiah 

1. The Persians, under Cyrus, overthrow the Baby- 

lonians (539) 

(1) The return from exile, Ezra 1, 2 

(2) The restoration of the temple (516) 3-6 

Opposition of Samaritans, 4. 

(3) The mission of Ezra 

The re-enactment of the law, Nehemiah 

8, 9 
Separation from Gentiles, Ezra 7-10 

(4) The mission of Nehemiah 

The rebuilding of the walls, Nehemiah 

1-7 
Opposition of Samaritans, 4, 6. 
Separation from Gentiles, 13. 

2. The Greeks, under Alexander, overthrow the 

Persians (332) 

Esther 

1. The king choses Esther, 1, 2. 

2. Haman against Mordecai and the Jews, 3. 

3. Esther and Mordecai against Haman, 5-9 

(1) Haman is hanged 

(2) The Jews kill the Persians 

npHE kingdom of Israel perished at the fall of 

Samaria, and was no more heard of. The 

people who were carried into exile became Assy- 

149 



THE ERA OF THE FOREIGN RULERS 

rians ; the people who were left in the land became 

Samaritans. 

The kingdom of Judah perished at the fall of 
Jerusalem, and never regained its place as an in- 
dependent nation. But the Jews who were carried 
into exile by the Chaldeans were settled in one 
place, and kept their old customs and religion. 
They ceased to be a kingdom, but they became a 
church. From that time on they were under 
foreign rulers: Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks and 
Romans; but they had their own priests. 

The change from the kingdom of Judah to the 
Jewish Church was made during the exile, under 
the leadership of Ezekiel. He was one of the very 
great men of the Bible history. Abraham was the 
father of the Hebrew race; Moses, delivering the 
people from slavery, made them a nation; under 
the guidance of Samuel, they became a kingdom; 
under the guidance of Ezekiel, they became a 

church. 

The great desire of Ezekiel, and of those who 
worked with him was to keep the Jews separate 
from the Chaldeans. They were not to partake 
in the life of their masters, but were to live their 
own life, keeping their own laws. The temple was 
indeed destroyed, and the sacrifices had therefore 



150 



THE ERA OF THE FOREIGN RULERS 

ceased; but even these they hoped to offer again, 
in a restored temple, when they should return to 
their own land. Meanwhile, there were many 
customs to be still observed. The Sabbath was to 
be kept. The distinction between what was holy 
and unholy, or clean and unclean, in food was 
still to be carefully made. This was one of the 
most important rules because it kept the Jews 
apart from the Chaldeans; they could not eat 
what the Chaldeans ate, they could not join them 
at their meals. 

In order, then, to remember just how the sacri- 
fices had been offered in the temple, so that they 
might be offered in the old way when the deliver- 
ance should come, they wrote down careful 
directions, describing these services. And in order 
to secure the keeping of the laws about the Sab- 
bath, and about the clean and the unclean, they 
wrote these also. Some of these directions and 
laws were very old, going back into the days of 
Moses; some had been added as the need had 
arisen since. The book which was thus written 
was in great part that which we now call Leviticus. 

Thus the law which Moses gave at Sinai had 
grown into two books : Deuteronomy, containing 
laws relating for the most part to the conduct of 

151 



THE ERA OF THE FOREIGN RULERS 

daily life, and Leviticus, containing laws relating 
for the most part to the conduct of the services and 
customs of religion. 

After the Jews had lived for fifty years in exile, 
a great change took place in the affairs of that part 
of the world. The Chaldeans who had conquered 
the Assyrians, were in their turn conquered by the 
Persians. Cyrus the Persian captured Babylon. 
The result of this change was the deliverance of 
the Jews. 

Back they went as many as desired, to their 
own land. They had a prince named Zerubbabel, 
and a priest named Joshua. But their king was 
Cyrus; and after Cyrus, Darius. That is, their 
land and they themselves were under the rule of 
the. Persians. Thus they settled in their ruined 
cities, and tried to make themselves once more a 
people. But they were poor, and easily dis- 
couraged. Moreover, the Samaritans came and 
troubled them, and for a time the work of rebuild- 
ing Jerusalem was stopped. Two prophets, how- 
ever, Haggai and Zechariah, urged the people, and 
at last the new temple, on the ruins of the old, 
was finished. 

Between the sixth and seventh chapters of the 
book of Ezra is a space of sixty years. Nothing is 

152 



THE ERA OF THE FOREIGN RULERS 

told us of the history of the Jews during that time, 
but such important events were taking place in 
Greece and in other parts of the world, that it is 
well to refer to them for a moment that we may- 
see where we are in general history. This fifth 
century before Christ was one of the most remark- 
able of all centuries. In this century, Aeschylus 
and Sophocles and Euripides were writing their 
plays, Herodotus and Thucydides were writing 
their histories; Socrates was teaching his philo- 
sophy, with Plato as one of his pupils; Leonidas 
and his Spartans defended the pass of Thermop- 
ylae against the Persians. Also, Confucius was 
teaching in China, and Gautama was founding 
the religion of Buddha in India. 

In this period is laid the scene of the story of 
Esther. She was a Jewish girl who became queen 
of Persia. The king, whose name in Hebrew was 
Ahasuerus, was the Xerxes who led his great army 
against Greece, and fought at Thermopylae and 
was decisively defeated at Salamis. One of the 
courtiers of Ahasuerus, named Haman, was the 
bitter enemy of another courtier, a Jew and uncle 
of Esther, named Mordecai. Haman made a plot 
to kill Mordecai, and to massacre the Jews, but 
Esther discovered it, and Haman was hanged on 

153 



THE ERA OF THE FOREIGN RULERS 

the gallows which he had built for his enemy. 
Then for several days, the Jews were permitted 
to kill as many Persians as they pleased; and 
Esther got the time extended, so that they might 
kill more. The story is so improbable, and so 
filled with the spirit of hatred, and so lacking in re- 
ligion, not once mentioning the name of God, that 
it was only after long debate and grave doubt 
that it was bound up with the books of the Bible. 
In the second half of this great century Ezra and 
Nehemiah were counsellors and leaders of the 
Jews. Ezra, the scribe, brought the law with him 
from the land of exile. The reference is probably 
to the first five books of the Old Testament. 
Nehemiah, the statesman, who had been the cup- 
bearer of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, succeeded 
at last in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. The 
prophet of this period was Malachi. 

Here the Old Testament history comes to an 
end. The Persians were afterwards conquered by 
the Greeks under Alexander, who thus became the 
masters of the Jews. Some of Alexander's generals 
called the Seleucids, settled in Syria, north of 
Judea. Others, called the Ptolemies, settled in 
the south, in Egypt. The Jews had a sad time 
between them. One of the Ptolemies, named 

154 



THE ERA OF THE FOREIGN RULERS 

Antiochus Epiphanes, tried to destroy the temple 
and the religion of the Jews. Against him rose up 
brave Judas Maccabeus and drove him away, and 
for a little while the land was independent. Final- 
ly, the Greeks were conquered by the Romans. 
They were the rulers of the Jews when Christ was 
born. 



155 



THE NEW HISTORY 

1. The First Book of Chronicles 

(1) Adam to Samuel, 1-9 

parallel with Genesis to Judges 

(2) Saul, 10, and David, 11-29 

parallel with Samuel. 

2. The Second Book of Chronicles 

(1) Solomon, 1-9 

(2) Kings of Judah, 10-36 

parallel with Kings. 



M AN 



[ANY of the events which we have been review- 
ing in these chapters are described in the 
Bible twice. The first book of Chronicles goes over 
the same ground as the books of Samuel, and the 
second book of Chronicles goes over the same 
ground as the books of Kings. 

Look at II Samuel 5, beginning at the seven- 
teenth verse, and then at I Chronicles 14, begin- 
ning at the eighth verse. Two battles of David 
with the Philistines are described in almost the 
same words. The next chapter of Samuel gives 
an account of the bringing of the ark to Jerusalem ; 
so also do the next chapters of Chronicles. Now 
however, the Chronicles make many additions. 



156 



THE NEW HISTORY 

Where the record in Samuel occupies one chapter, 
the record in Chronicles occupies two. The 
Chronicles give the names of the men who carried 
the ark, and of the men who played on instruments 
of music and sang, and report the words of the 
psalm in which David thanked God that day. 

Sometimes the Chronicles leave out chapters 
which are found in Samuel. Look at the end of 
the tenth chapter of II Samuel; the last words are 
"So the Syrians feared to help the children of 
Ammon any more." The nineteenth chapter of 
I Chronicles ends in the same way; " Neither 
would the Syrians help the children of Ammon 
any more." Up to this point, the two histories 
have been going over the same road, saying the 
same things. But now the writer of Samuel begins 
to tell about the sins of David, the story of Bath- 
sheba and the story of Absolom. Then he comes 
to an account of the taking of a census. He says, 
"The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, 
and he moved David against them to say, 'Go, 
number Israel and Judah.'" The writer of the 
Chronicles has not a word about the sins of David; 
he omits the story of Bathsheba and the story of 
Absolom. After speaking of the Syrians and the 
children of Ammon, he has a little chapter about 

157 



THE NEW HISTORY 

the king of Amnion's crown. Then he says, 
"And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked 
David to number Israel/ ' Here the two histories 
come together again. Also, the Chronicles leave 
out all the stories of Elijah and Elisha. 

There are accordingly in the Old Testament two 
series of histories. The first begins with Genesis 
and ends with II Kings. It gives an account of 
events from the creation of the world and man to 
the exile of the Jewish people. The second begins 
with I Chronicles and ends with Nehemiah. It 
gives an account of events from the creation of 
Adam to the return of the Jewish people from their 
exile, and their rebuilding of the holy temple and 
the holy city. 

The first series of histories was composed, as we 
have seen, of many ancient materials, the me- 
mories and records of the people. It must have 
been completed before 536, because it makes no 
mention of Cyrus, who in that year having cap- 
tured Babylon, permitted the Jews to return. 
When the last writer of that series of histories laid 
down his pen, there was no sign that the exile 
might soon be ended. Cyrus, the deliverer, had 
not been heard of. 

The second series of histories was composed 

158 



THE NEW HISTORY 

largely of materials taken from the first, but it 
carried the record further. It must have been 
composed after 332, because it mentions Jaddua, 
who was high priest that year. Thus the second 
series was written more than two hundred years 
after the first. 

The writer of the new history lived in Jerusalem, 
and the kingdom of Judah had become the Jewish 
Church. He had no interest in the affairs of the 
kingdom of Israel, which he considered a rebellious 
nation. He felt that the only history which the 
people needed to know was the history of the 
kingdom of Judah. Thus he paid no more atten- 
tion to the events which took place in Israel than 
an historian of England might pay to events which 
took place, after the Revolution, in America. The 
new history is a history of Judah. 

Also, since Judah was in his time a church rather 
than a kingdom, the new historian was mainly 
interested in church matters, in accounts of ser- 
vices, and in the temple. This is why he describes 
at such length the ceremonies of the bringing up of 
the ark. The new history is a history of the church. 

Thus we have these two series of books on the 
same subject. They both describe the fortunes 
and misfortunes of the Israelites. We see Abra- 

159 



THE NEW HISTORY 

ham, coming from beyond the Euphrates and 
settling in Palestine; and Joseph, establishing the 
family in Egypt; and Moses bringing the people 
out from bondage there, giving them laws at 
Sinai and training them in the wilderness; and 
Joshua, leading them to the conquest of the land 
in which Abraham had settled; and Barak and 
Gideon and Jephthah and Samson fighting their 
battles; and Samuel making Saul their king, and 
after him David and Solomon; then the kingdom 
divided; the kingdom of Israel ruled by Jeroboam, 
Ahab, Jehu and Jeroboam II, till its destruction 
by the Assyrians; the kingdom of Judah ruled by 
Rehoboam, Asa, Jehoshophat, by Athaliah and 
Uzziah, by Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah, 
till its destruction by the Babylonians; then the 
exile of Judah and their return to Jerusalem, and 
the rebuilding of the city and the walls. 

Sometimes the histories agree; sometimes they 
disagree, and we must decide between them. 
One series is interested in the people, the other is 
interested in the church. But they both declare 
again and again the justice and the love of God, 
and they both say, and prove it by events, that 
the duty and prosperity of man consist in keeping 
God's commandments. 

160 



THE OLD TESTAMENT 
THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 



THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 

1. Proverbs 

(1) The praise of wisdom, 1-9 

(2) The three collections 

a. The proverbs of Solomon, 10-22 :16 

b. The proverbs of the Sages, 22:17-24 

c. The proverbs of Hezekiah, 25-29 

(3) The three additions 

o. The words of Agur, 30 

6. The words of Lemuel, 31 :l-9 

c. The good housewife, 31 :10-31 

2. Job 

(1) Prologue (prose) 

Two celestial councils 1, 2 

(2) Poem 

a. The complaint of Job, 3 

b. First cycle of speeches, 4-14 

c. Second cycle of speeches, 15-21 

d. Third cycle of speeches, 22-28 

e. The conclusion of Job, 29-31 
/. Elihu speaks, 32-37 

g. God speaks, 38-41 

(3) Epilogue (prose) 

Job commended, friends condemned, 42 

3. Ecclesiastes 

(1) Prologue; the fact,— "All is vanity," 
1:1-11 

163 



THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 

3. Ecclesiastes (Continued) 

(2) The seven sayings 1:12-2:26 

a. Vanity 

b. Time, 3 

c. Profit, 4, 5 

d. Wealth, 6:1-7:18 

e. Wisdom, 7:19-9:10 
/. Chance, 9:11-11:6 

g. Mortality, 11:7-12:7 

(3) Epilogue; the duty,— "Fear God," 

12:8-14. 

'T^HE next five books of the Bible are in poetry. 
Three of these — Proverbs, Job and Ecclesi- 
astes — are books of Wisdom. 

There is a kind of study which concerns itself 
with knowledge, and tries to learn about the stars 
and the hills, and plants and animals: this is 
called Science. There is a kind of study which 
concerns itself with thought, and tries to learn 
about the working of the mind: this is called 
Philosophy. Thus science deals with the world 
outside of us, and philosophy deals with the world 
within us. There is another kind of study which 
concerns itself with conduct, and tries to learn 
from experience and observation the difference 
between right and wrong, and what we ought to 
do and not to do: this is what is meant in the 
Bible by Wisdom 

164 



THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 

Thus the Proverbs are sentences of good advice. 
They tell us that wisdom consists in honesty and 
truth and justice and righteousness. If we are 
truly wise we will love our friends and be faithful to 
them; and we will save our money. 

The book begins with the Praise of Wisdom, in 
nine chapters. Side by side stand the House of 
Wisdom and the House of Folly; and Wisdom and 
Folly sit by their doors and invite people to come 
in. 

Then there are three collections of wise words: 
the Proverbs of Solomon, beginning with chapter 
ten; the Proverbs of the Sages, beginning with 
verse seventeen in chapter twenty-one, — "Bow 
down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise"; 
and the Proverbs of Hezekiah, beginning with 
chapter twenty-five. 

To these there are three short additions: the 
Words of Agar, in chapter thirty; the Words of 
Lemuel and the description of the Good House- 
wife, in chapter thirty-one. The Proverbs say, 
over and over, that it is foolish to tell lies, to take 
what does not belong to us, to spend more than we 
can afford, or to go with bad companions, for all 
these things are like paths which lead to unhap- 
piness and destruction. 

165 



THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 

But suppose that a wise man, in spite of all his 
wisdom, falls into great trouble. What shall he 
say and do then? He keeps the commandments, 
and does no wrong thing, yet failure and pain 
come upon him. A common answer was to say 
that pain and failure always mean wrong-doing. 
If a man loses his money, or falls sick with some 
grievous disease, God is punishing him for some 
sin. The man must discover his sin and confess it, 

and stop it. 

This answer did not satisfy the writer of the 
book of Job. He saw that evil comes even to good 
men. He took, accordingly, for his hero a per- 
fectly good man, named Job. He pictured a 
scene in Heaven, where God sat on His throne 
listening to the report which one of His angels, 
named Satan, brought back from a journey which 
he had been taking in the earth. Satan said that 
the best man whom he had found was Job, but 
he suggested that Job was good only for the sake 
of the blessings of God; if he were deprived of 
those blessings he would be as bad as anybody else. 
God gave Satan leave to try the experiment, and 
thus all manner of ills fell upon poor Job. His 
property was destroyed,his sons and daughters died, 
and he himself was stricken with a painful sickness. 

166 



THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 

Thus the story begins. Job is found groaning 
in his distress. Three friends come to see him. 
They believe, like most people, that Job has done 
some dreadful wrong, for which God is punishing 
him. And they tell him so. But Job declares that 
he is innocent. First speaks Eliphaz the Temanite, 
and Job answers; then Bildad the Shuhite, and 
Job answers; then Zophar the Naamathite, and 
Job answers. This is done three times. After 
that comes Elihu, another friend, and reproves 
Job for saying that God is dealing unjustly with 
him. Finally, God Himself speaks from the clouds, 
reproving Job's friends and praising the constancy 
of Job. Then Job's possessions are restored to 
him seven times as many as he had before, and he 
lives happily ever after. 

Thus the book of Job not only contradicts the 
notion that pain must mean the sin of man and 
the anger of God, but shows how a wise man con- 
ducts himself in the midst of affliction: Job says 
of God, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in 
Him." 

The third book of wisdom, Ecclesiastes, deals 
with a very different situation. Job shows the 
behavior of a wise man in adversity, Ecclesiastes 
shows the behavior of a wise man in prosperity. 

167 



THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 

The hero of the book is Solomon, who was re- 
membered as both the wisest and the richest of 
men. He is represented in his old age, as casting 
aside the cares of state and considering the worth 
of all his power and wealth. He says that it is 
all worth nothing. " Vanity of vanities, all is 

vanity." 

Sometimes the emptiness of all earthly things 
filled him with sadness, especially when he thought 
how soon our life comes to an end. The great 
truth of the life to come was very dim in the days 
of the Old Testament. People seldom thought 
about it; at least, they seldom wrote about it. 
When they did speak of another world they repre- 
sented it, as in the Psalms, as a dark and shadowy 
place, " where all things are forgotten." The 
writer of Ecclesiastes refused to consider it at all. 
A new hope of immortality was coming into the 
hearts of the people, but he would not share it. 
"That which befalleth the sons of men," he said, 
"befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; 
as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they all 
have one breath; so that a man hath no pre- 
eminence above a beast; for all is vanity." 

But sometimes the emptiness of all things 
earthly filled him with courage. He resolved to 

168 



THE BOOKS OF WISDOM 

make the most of such life as he had. He would 
enjoy his work; he would do his best. Even at 
death the spirit of man returns to God who gave 
it. In the meantime, "Fear God and keep his 
commandments: for this is the whole duty of 
man." 



169 



THE BOOK OF PSALMS AND THE BOOK 

OF SONGS 

1. The Psalms 

1. Personal psalms 

First book, 1-41. 

2. National psalms 

Second book, 42-72. 
Third book, 73-89. 

3. Liturgical psalms 

Fourth book, 90-106. 
Fifth book, 107-150. 

2. The Song of Solomon 

1. The Camp: The Lily among Thorns, 1:2- 

2:7. 

2. The Camp: The Dove in the Clefts of the 

Rock 2:8-3:5. 

3. The Court: The Garden of Spices 3:6-5:8. 

4. The Court: The Chief est among Ten 

Thousand, 5:9-8:4. 

5. The Village: Love is Strong as Death, 8 :5- 

14. 

T IKE most good people, the Old Testament men 
^ and women —and, no doubt, the Old Testa- 
ment boys and girls -loved to sing. When Moses 
had brought them safely over the Red Sea, immedi- 
ately his sister Miriam set them to singing: "I 

170 



THE BOOK OF PSALMS 

will sing into the Lord, for He hath triumphed 
gloriously/ ' So sang Deborah and Barak after 
they had defeated Sisera: " Praise ye the Lord 
for the avenging of Israel.' ' So sang David in 
grief over the death of Saul and Jonathan: "The 
beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places : How 
are the mighty fallen ! " There was singing also on 
the day when the ark was brought by David to 
Jerusalem, with music of harps and psalteries and 
timbrels and cornets and cymbals. And when the 
ark was set in its place, and especially after the 
temple was built, the worship of God was expressed 
in sacred songs. 

These songs were called psalms. They began to 
be written in the days of David, a thousand years 
before Christ, and the name of David is attached 
to many of them, as the name of Moses is attached 
to the laws, and the name of Solomon to the pro- 
verbs. Thus a forest may bear the name of the 
man who set out the first trees. 

Century by century, as the kingdom of Judah 
grew, and great events claimed commemoration 
of joy or of sorrow, new psalms were added. The 
book of psalms was enriched, like books of hymns. 
Thus the one-hundred-and-thirty-seventh psalm 
was written in the days of the exile: "By the 

171 



THE BOOK OF PSALMS 

rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we 
wept, when we remembered Zion." And the 
seventy-fourth psalm was written in the days of 
the Maccabees: "0 God, why hast thou cast us 
off forever? They break down the carved work 
with axes and hammers." That was in the second 
century before Christ. Thus it took more than 
eight hundred years to write the psalms. 

The book as it stands completed in the Bible 
contains five collections, each ending with a verse 

of praise. 

The first collection is made up mostly of personal 
psalms. In them the writer expresses his own 
faith and thanksgiving, and prays for his own 
needs. The last psalm, the forty-first, ends with 
the words: " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel 
from everlasting and to everlasting. Amen and 

Amen." 

The second and third collections are made up 
mostly of national psalms. They commemorate 
the blessings of God to the people in general, and 
pray for the prosperity of the nation. The second 
book closes at the end of the seventy-second psalm 
with the words: "Blessed be the Lord God, the 
God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. 
And blessed be His glorious name forever, and let 

172 



THE BOOK OF PSALMS 

the whole earth be filled with His glory; Amen 
and Amen. The prayers of David the son of Jesse 
are ended. " And the third book closes at the end 
of the eighty-ninth psalm with the words, " Blessed 
be the Lord forever more, Amen and Amen." ] 

The fourth and fifth collections are made up 
mostly of liturgical psalms. They were written 
for use in the services of the temple. The one- 
hundred-and-sixth psalm, at the close of the fourth 
book, ends, " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel 
from everlasting to everlasting; and let all the 
people say Amen. Praise ye the Lord." And the 
one-hundred-and-fiftieth psalm, at the close of the 
whole book is itself a splendid doxology. 

The one-hundred-and-nineteenth psalm, the 
longest of all, is an alphabet poem. The first eight 
verses begin each with the first letter of the Hebrew 
alphabet, and the next eight with the second, and 
so on. This, of course, does not appear in English; 
but even in English one can see that every verse 
contains some word which means the law, — 
statutes, commandments, judgments, testimonies. 
Thus the whole psalm is in praise of the law of God. 

The short psalms from the one-hundred-and- 
twentieth to the one-hundred-and-thirty-fourth 
are called pilgrim psalms, because they were sung 

173 



THE BOOK OF PSALMS 

on the way to Jerusalem when the people came to 
the Passover, and the other feasts. "I will lift up 
mine eyes unto the hills/ ' they sang, as they came 
in sight of the hills on which the Holy City stood. 

The twenty-second is a passion psalm, whose 
first words our Lord recited on the cross. The 
twenty-third is the shepherd psalm. The twenty- 
ninth is about a thunder storm, the fifty-first is a 
penitential psalm of great sorrow after sin. The 
fifty-eighth is an imprecatory psalm, calling down 
the curse of God on enemies; it shows that there 
were great truths of religion which the psalmists 
had not learned, which we have been taught by 
Him who said " Love your enemies/ ' Such psalms 
are like mile stones, to which we look back to see 
how far we have come. The sixty-ninth is a war 
psalm. The psalms from the ninty-fifth to the 
hundredth (the "old hundredth/') are said to have 
been sung when the temple was rebuilt and dedi- 
cated, after the exile. The one-hundred-and- 
fourth is a nature psalm, like the one-hundred- 
and-forty-eighth. 

Very different from the Books of Psalms is the 
Book of Songs. This is called the Song of Solomon, 
and is a collection of poems not of religion but of 
love. It is like Esther in being a book of the Bible 

174 



THE BOOK OF SONGS 

in which the interest is not in religion. And, like 
Esther, it was taken into the Bible only after long 
discussion. Some said that these two were good 
books and should be given to all people to read ; some 
said that they were of no value for the soul, and 
were of no help in living a good life, and that they 
did not belong in such a collection of spiritual and 
moral writings as the Bible. Finally, they were 
admitted. 

The story of the Song of Solomon is not easy to 
follow, but it seems to tell of a peasant girl of 
Shunem whom Solomon brings from her village 
home to his court in Jerusalem. She has a lover, 
a peasant like herself, and is true to him in spite 
of all the wealth and pleasure of the court. At last, 
she is permitted to go back to him. Into the 
framework of this story are set the songs which 
they sing. 



175 



THE OLD TESTAMENT 

THE PROPHETICAL BOOKS 



AMOS, HOSEA, MICAH 

1. Amos. The Wrath of God. 

(1) A prophecy of punishment of nations, in- 

cluding Israel, 1, 2. 

(2) Three warning sermons, 3-6. 

"Hear ye this word,"— 3:1, 4:1, 5:1. 

(3) Five visions, 7-9 

The priest silences the prophet, 7:10-17. 

2. Hosea. The Love of God. 

(1) The parable of the prodigal wife, 1-3 

(2) A collection of sermons. 

a. The guilt of Israel, 4-8. 

6. The punishment of God, 9, 10. 

c. Yet the love of God, 11-14. 

3. Micah. The Assyrian Invasion. 

(1) A prophecy of punishment of the rich. 

a. An invading army, 1, 2. 

b. A peasant saviour, 3-5. 

(2) Added words of warning, 6, 7. 

(~XF the three parts of the Old Testament, the 
first is composed of books of history and the 
second of books of poetry. We come now to books 
of prophecy, of which there are sixteen; or, with 
Lamentations added, seventeen. This is just the 
number of the books of history, of which there are 

179 



PROPHETS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY 

sixteen; or, with Esther added, seventeen. Of the 
sixteen prophecies four are long, and twelve, — 
called the minor prophets, — are short. 

The word prophecy, as it is used in the Bible, 
means preaching. The prophets often spoke of the 
future and told what must come to pass, but in 
their minds the future was always connected with 
the present. They declared in all their sermons 
that God will surely bless the righteous and will 
just as surely punish the wicked. So when they 
saw the people doing wrong, they prophesied dis- 
aster; and when they saw the people sorry for their 
wrong-doing, they prophesied prosperity. The 
whole interest of the prophets was in their own 
time and their own land. They talked to the 
people about the things which they saw with their 
own eyes. In an age when there were no news- 
papers, they took the place of newspapers, and 
their sermons were like the editorials of great 
editors. All their sermons were about the events 
which were taking place, and the questions which 
were being discussed that very day. 

Thus in order to understand the books of the 
prophets we must understand the questions and 
the events about which they spoke. Without such 
knowledge we may indeed find sentences here ajid 

180 



AMOS, HOSEA, MICAH 

there which are everlastingly true and helpful, but 
the books themselves will seem confused and diffi- 
cult, without meaning or interest. 

Taking the prophets, then, in the order of time, 
— which is a little different from the order in the 
Bible — the first four were Amos, Hosea, Micah 
and Isaiah; three short and one long. These all 
belonged to the second half of the eighth century. 
In the kingdom of Israel, where Amos and Hosea 
preached, the reign of Jeroboam II was coming to 
an end, and the time of decline and disorder was 
following. In the kingdom of Judah, where Micah 
and Isaiah preached, the reign of Uzziah was end- 
ing, and after Uzziah Ahaz, and after Ahaz, Heze- 
kiah, were the kings. The tremendous fact of the 
time was the Assyrian invasion. Every one of 
these four prophets found the people doing 
wickedly, and saw the Assyrians coming to punish 
them. 

Amos, although he preached in the kingdom of 
Israel, came from the kingdom of Judah, having 
his home at Tekoa a little village south of 
Jerusalem. He was a herdsman, living in the 
fields with his flocks, looking out from his high 
pasture over the Dead Sea, and getting news of 
the world from caravans on their way to Egypt. 

181 



PROPHETS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY 

Thus he heard how people lived in cities, and how 
in Assyria there was a new, strong king planning 
the conquest of the world. 

At last, he determined to see for himself. He 
left his flocks, and went up past Jerusalem to 
Bethel. This was only a little more than twenty 
miles from Tekoa. There he found a rich city, 
where princes and merchants lived in great houses, 
and in whose back streets lived the hungry poor. 
He found the rich cheating and oppressing the 
poor. He saw that these dishonest people had a 
splendid church, with carved pillars and adorn- 
ments of gold, and gorgeous services to which they 
went with regularity and devotion. And he stood 
in the street in front of the church, and lifted up 
his voice and preached. He declared plainly what 
God thinks of unjust, cruel and dishonest people 
in splendid churches. 

Presently the priest came out and drove him 
away. "Go home/' he said, "do not speak such 
words in this place. This is the king's chapel." 
Thus Amos was put to silence. He went home anp 

wrote this book. 

Hosea became a preacher by reason of a bitter 
experience. He had an unfaithful wife. She went 
away and left him; left him and their three 

182 



AMOS, HOSEA, MICAH 

children, a little girl named Lo-ruhamah, and two 
little boys named Jezreel and Lo-ammi. 

Each of these names had a meaning which 
showed how deeply Hosea was interested in the 
affairs of the nation. Jezreel meant that God 
would avenge the blood which Jehu had shed at 
the fortress of that name, when he killed Jezebel 
and the two kings. Hosea thus expressed his con- 
viction that the descendant of Jehu then upon the 
throne should be the last king in the family. Lo- 
ruhamah means No-pity, and Lo-ammi means 
No-people. By these names Hosea declared that 
God would have no pity on the kingdom of Israel 
in its coming distresses, and that He would no 
longer regard them as His people. 

But Hosea still loved his unfaithful wife. One 
day, as he passed through the market-place, he 
saw her there, deserted by her false friends, 
ragged and hungry, and for sale as a slave. He 
bought her and took her home. And there grad- 
ually a great new truth came into the soul of 
Hosea. He said to himself "All the people of this 
kingdom have done to God what my wife did to 
me. They have gone away and left Him. And 
they are coming more and more into deep distress, 
as she did. Surely, God is more loving than I am. 

183 



PROPHETS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY 

If I still love my wife, God must still love His 

people." 

Thus Hosea learned a new truth about God. 
He changed his boy's names, calling the one 
Ruhamah, or Pity, and the other Ammi, or People. 
Amos had rebuked the sins of the people, declaring 
that they would be punished; for God is law. 
Hosea rebuked the same sins with the same 
earnestness, but he said that though God might 
punish His people He would not forsake them. 
If they would repent and do right, He would pity 
them; they should be His people still; for God is 

love. 

But the people who had not heeded the sermons 
of Amos did not heed the sermons of Hosea. They 
went from bad to worse. And the Assyrians came, 
whom the prophets had seen on the horizon. 
They came and destroyed the kingdom of Israel, 
and it had no longer a place among the nations. 

Then the Assyrians turned their attention to 
the kingdom of Judah. The first alarm was 
sounded by the prophet Micah. He lived at the ( 
south-west corner of the upland country of Judah, 
as Amos had lived at the south-east corner. The 
village of Moresheth was by the great war-path, 
along the coast, which the Assyrians would take 



184 



AMOS, HOSEA, MICAH 

if they went down to fight the Egyptians, and at 
the place where they would turn aside to attack 
Jerusalem. Micah saw in imagination all the 
villages about him brought to destruction, all the 
fair country ruined by the Assyrians. He laid the 
blame on the wickedness of the rich. He re- 
proached the wealthy landowners of Judah as 
Amos and Hosea had rebuked the wealthy mer- 
chants of Israel. "Now," he cried, "shall they be 
punished who have oppressed us country people. 
Now shall Jerusalem be brought to devastation." 

But Micah, like Hosea, saw a better future. 
There should be affliction, as Hosea said, but after 
that a good time. "Yes," added Micah, "A good 
time, brought in by a good man. Not from among 
the wealthy and mighty in Jerusalem, but from 
among us peasants — some shepherd like David at 
Bethlehem — shall a new David come to save us." 

Thus came into the mind of the Jews the ex- 
pectation of a great deliverer, whom they called 
Messiah. Thereafter, at every crisis of their his- 
tory, where their lives were hard and their foes 
were cruel, they looked for him to come. 



185 



ISAIAH 

1. Isaiah of Jerusalem, 1-39. 

(1) A collection of prophecies, 1-12, concern- 

ing the sins of the people, and the two in- 
vasions. 

(2) Concerning foreign nations, 13-23. 

(3) Concerning the end of the world, 24-27. 

(4) A collection of prophecies, 28-33, concern- 

ing the sins of the people, and the As- 
syrian invasion. 

(5) Concerning Edom and Israel, 34, 35. 

(6) Chapters of history, from II Kings, 36-39. 

2. Isaiah of Babylon, 40-66. 

(1) The certainty of restoration, 40-48, Cyrus 

the deliverer. 

(2) The preparation for restoration, 48-59. 

The Servant of the Lord, suffering for 
the sins of the world. 

(3) The joy of restoration, 60-66. 

nPHE speeches of Micah were both preceded and 
followed by the ministry of Isaiah. Isaiah 
began to preach before the crisis which aroused 
Micah, and he continued to preach after that 
crisis had passed. 

In the year when King Uzziah died, a young 
nobleman in the court of Jerusalem had a vision. 

186 



ISAIAH 

He saw the Lord in the temple, sitting on a throne. 
In the light of this vision the young man perceived 
that the men who sat on thrones in Jerusalem and 
ruled the people were very different from the Lord : 
also the people were very different from the Lord's 
idea of what men and women ought to be. The 
young man was Isaiah. 

Immediately he began to do what he could to 
turn the people from their evil ways and to get 
them to do right. He became a preacher. His 
young wife, too, who is called "the prophetess," 
became a preacher with him. Even their two 
little boys were given names which were as good 
as sermons. One was called Shear-jashub; the 
other was called Maher-shalal-hash-baz. The 
second name means " Speedy spoil, hasty prey," 
and thus declares a coming destruction; the first 
name means, "A remnant shall return," and this 
means that the destruction shall not destroy the 
people completely. 

Ahaz followed Uzziah on the throne of Judah, 
and Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus made 
their appeal to him to join them in resisting 
Assyria, and when he would not, they marched 
down to compel him. Isaiah assured him that 
Assyria would destroy both Damascus and Israel, 

187 



PROPHETS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY 

and that he had no need to be afraid. But Ahaz 
disregarded the advice of Isaiah and bought the 
help of Assyria. It was like a family of mice afraid 
of another family of mice, and hiring the cat to 
help them. The Assyrians came and put an end 
to Damascus and Israel, as Isaiah had said. But 
they kept hold of Ahaz. 

Then Hezekiah came to the throne, and the 
Assyrian advance continued. The taxes which 
the Mediterranean provinces — Phoenicia, Philistia 
and Judah — had to pay to Assyria were a heavy 
burden. After the death of Sargon, who had 
destroyed the kingdom of Israel, Assyria seemed 
for a moment to have lost its power. The king of 
Babylon rebelled; the king of Egypt began to 
make threats against Assyria, and tried to stir his 
neighbors to revolt. There was a strong Egyptian 
party in Jerusalem who said, "Let us cast off the 
yoke of Assyria, and rely upon the strength of 
Egypt. " This policy Isaiah opposed. For three 
years he went about the streets barefooted and 
dressed like a captive, saying that the whole 
nation would look like that if they sought help 
from the Egyptians. Thus he was able to prevent 
rebellion, for a time. 

At last, however, the advocates of revolt pre- 

188 



ISAIAH 

vailed. Judah joined with the neighboring 
provinces against Assyria. And, as Isaiah had 
predicted, the Egyptians could do nothing. The 
Assyrians defeated them in the first battle. The 
rebellious provinces were immediately punished. 
Hezekiah was compelled to pay to Assyria such 
an amount of money that he had to strip off the 
gold from the doors of the temple to make it up. 

Finally, the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem. The 
ambassador of Sennacherib demanded its sur- 
render. The whole surrounding country was 
desolated. The misery of the land is described in 
the first chapter of Isaiah's book. The only hope 
of the people was in the counsels and prayers of 
Isaiah. Then suddenly the siege was raised, and 
the Assyrians returned to their own land. It 
seemed as if the Lord had reached down His 
mighty arm from Heaven, and had saved His 
holy city. 

These two invasions — of Israel and Damascus 
in the days of Ahaz, and of Assyria in the days of 
Hezekiah — were the chief events of Isaiah's minis- 
try. But there are many more sermons in the book 
than those which relate to these two wars. There 
is a series of chapters about foreign nations, and a 
discourse on the end of the world. 

189 



PROPHETS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY 

Indeed, the whole latter part of the book is not 
only unrelated to these crises, but is unconnected 
even with Isaiah. At the fortieth chapter, the 
scene and time are suddenly changed. In the 
chapters ending with the thirty-ninth, the scene 
is Jerusalem, the time is the eighth century before 
Christ, the world-power which terrifies the nation 
is Assyria, the great king is Sennacherib. In the 
chapters beginning with the fortieth, the scene is 
Babylon, the time is the sixth century before 
Christ, the world power which threatens the 
nations is Persia, the great king is Cyrus. In the 
first part of the book the prophet is assuring the 
people that Jerusalem shall not be destroyed. 
In the second part of the book, Jerusalem has 
been destroyed, and after lying for many years in 
ruins, the prophet is promising that it shall be 
rebuilt. Of course, the explanation is that in the 
book which we call Isaiah, two quite different 
books are bound together. 

In the sad days of the exile, a great prophet and 
poet, who is called the Second Isaiah because we 
do not know his name, wrote these last chapters 
of encouragement and assurance. The Lord said 
to him, " Comfort ye my people"; and thus he 
comforted them. 

190 



ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM AND HABAKKUK 

1. Zephaniah; the Scythian Invasian. 

(1) The Day of the Lord upon Jerusalem, 1. 

(2) The Day of the Lord upon the nations, 

2,3. 

2. Nahum: Before the Fall of Nineveh. 

(1) An Ode of the Vengeance of the Lord, 1. 

(2) An Ode of the Vengeance of the Lord on 

Assyria, 2, 3. 

3. Habakkuk: After the Fall of Nineveh. 

(1) Dialogue: The Prosperity of the Wicked, 

1. 

(2) Five songs of defiance, 2. 

(3) A psalm of the Might of God, 3. 

A FTER the preaching of Amos and Hosea, and 
of Micah and Isaiah, in the latter half of the 
eighth century, there was silence for fifty years. 
That was when Manasseh was king, when anybody 
who dared to defend the true religion would have 
had his head taken off. 

When Manasseh died, and the good Josiah came 
to the throne, and in the latter half of the seventh 
century, four more men declared the will of God 
against the sins of the people. Thus we have from 

191 



PROPHETS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY 

that time three short books written by Zephaniah, 
Nahum and Habakkuk, and one long book written 
by Jeremiah. 

Zephaniah was moved to speak his mind, and 
God's mind, about the way in which men and 
women were living in Jerusalem, by the approach 
of some great peril. Not only the kingdom of 
Judah, but lands so far apart as Philistia in the 
west, and Assyria in the east, and Ethiopia in the 
south, were menaced with invasion. A great and 
terrible enemy was threatening to destroy the 
nations of the earth. Such an enemy was the 
army of the wild Scythians, who at that time were 
coming down from the vast plains of Russia to 
attack the civilized countries of Asia. They were 
first of that vast multitude of barbarians who 
afterward, as Goths and Huns and Vandals, over- 
threw the Roman Empire. They were so fierce, 
and the land behind them was left so desolate, that 
their coming seemed like the end of all things. 
Zephaniah called it the Day of the Lord. He 
expected nothing less than universal destruction; 
and it was a punishment, he said, for sin. It was 
a Day of Judgment. 

The Scythians did not destroy Jerusalem, as 
Zephaniah feared. For the moment, they aided 

192 



ZEPHANIAH, NAHUM, HABAKKUK 

Jerusalem by weakening the power of Assyria. 
Down they came on Nineveh from the north, and 
up came the rebellious Chaldeans from the south, 
and at last the city fell. Nineveh was destroyed, 
and Babylon became the capital of the world. 

This tremendous event called out the words of 
Nahum and Habakkuk. Nahum seems to have 
written his book before the fall of Nineveh, but 
when the power of her enemies was plain. He 
imagined from afar the taking of the city,— the 
noise of the whips, the noise of the rattling wheels 
of the jumping chariots as the besiegers with 
swords and spears made their way into the streets. 
" Nineveh/' he cried, " is laid waste. Who will be- 
moan her?" That great Assyrian power, which 
had destroyed the kingdom of Israel, and threat- 
ened the kingdom of Judah, whose hand was 
heavy on all the nations, was now to meet the 
proper punishment for years of oppression. Na- 
hum was glad. The thought of the ruin of Nin- 
eveh filled him with joy. 

To Habakkuk, however, who wrote after the de- 
struction of Nineveh, the situation was not so 
clear. The Assyrians, indeed, the old enemies and 
masters of the Jews, had been brought low, but in 
their place stood the Chaldeans, the lords of 

193 



PROPHETS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY 

Babylon. And the Chaldeans were coming to 
invade the West. The old enemies had been ex- 
changed for new; and the new, it seemed, were 
worse than the old: "A bitter and a hasty nation, 
terrible and dreadful," with horses swifter than 
leopards and fiercer than wolves, coming all for 

violence. 

Thus the book of Habakkuk begins with a dia- 
logue. "0 Lord," says the prophet, "how long 
shall I cry unto Thee, and Thou wilt not hear?" 

"I do hear," says the Lord, "have I not de- 
stroyed your oppressors, the Assyrians?" 

"Yes, Lord," replies the prophet, "but Thou 
hast raised up a worse nation, the Chaldeans. 
Wherefore holdest Thou Thy peace when the 
wicked swalloweth up the man who is more 
righteous than he?" 

To this question which men have always asked, 
and are still asking— the problem of the prosperity 
of the wicked and of the adversity of the good— 
the book contains two answers. One is that the 
Chaldeans, wicked as they are, shall punish the 
wickedness of Judah; they are an instrument in 
the Lord's hands to bring about His great pur- 
poses. The other is that life consists in righteous- 
ness; "the just shall live by his faith." Not 

194 



ZEPHANIAL, NAHUM, HABAKKUK 

wealth, nor health, nor prosperity, nor peace is the 
best possession, but a good conscience. They who 
trust God and serve Him have an abiding happi- 
ness which no Chaldeans nor any other calamities 

can take away. 

Then the prophet sings five defiant songs against 
the approaching enemy. The book ends with a 
psalm concerning the mighty power of God. 



195 



JEREMIAH 

1. The book which the king burned, 1-17. 

(1) The prophets call, 1. 

(2) His first sermon, 2-6. 

(3) " Amend your ways," 7-10. 

(4) "Hear the words of the covenant," 11-17. 

2. Prophecies on various occasions, 18-33. 

(1) The sermon which led to the stocks, 19. 

(2) Sermons on kings, 21-23:1-8. 

(3) A sermon on prophets, 23 :9-40. 

(4) The people left behind, 24. 

(5) The battle of Carchemish, 25. 

(6) The sermon which raised the mob, 26. 

(7) In the reign of Zedekiah, 27-29. 

(8) On the restoration of the exiles, 30-33. 

3. Chapters of history, 34-45. 

The final siege of Jerusalem. 

4. Prophecies concerning foreign nations, 46-51, 

with II Kings 24:18—25:30 quoted, 52. 

/n pHEY brought one day to King Jehoiakim a 

roll of writing. "Baruch, the scribe," they 

said, "has been reading this roll to a great crowd 

of people in the temple, and we have had him read 

it to us princes. We think that you ought to 

hear it." 

Now the king was in his winter palace, and a 

196 



JEREMIAH 

fire was burning before him on the hearth. So he 
listened while one read from the roll of writing. 
Every sentence made him more angry. At last, 
after three or four leaves had been read, he 
snatched it from the reader's hand, cut it in pieces 
with his penknife, and threw it into the fire till it 
was all consumed. Then he sent officers to arrest 
Baruch and the writer of the roll, but they could 
not find them. 

This writing was the first copy of the book of 
Jeremiah. When he heard what the king had done, 
he called Baruch and dictated to him again all that 
was in the roll, and more also, and Baruch wrote 
it as he spoke it. This we have in the first seven- 
teen chapters of the book. 

In this writing, Jeremiah gave an account of his 
ministry of twenty years. 

He had become a prophet when the Scythians 
were bringing upon the nations the terror which 
had inspired Zephaniah. He had read the book 
of Deuteronomy, when it was a new book, just 
found in its hiding-place in the temple, and had 
taken part in the reformation which was thus 
stirred up. He had lamented the untimely death 
of Josiah in the battle with the Egyptian. All this 
time he had set himself against the sins of the 

197 



PROPHETS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY 

princes and the priests of Judah. The princes he 
accused of injustice, the priests he accused of 
idolatry. All of them, he said, had forsaken God. 
And the whole people should be punished. He 
spoke very plainly of the king, who in the midst of 
the poverty of the land was building a new palace 
and making men work for him for nothing. Such 
words as these cannot be spoken without making 
enemies. The king, the priests and the princes 
hated Jeremiah. 

One time, in the court of the temple, he declared 
that the ministers of God in Jerusalem were so 
offensive to God, by their sins and their worship 
of other gods, that the temple should certainly be 
destroyed. And a mob tried to kill him. 

One time, in the valley of Hinnom, he called the 
rulers of Jerusalem together, and taking a bottle 
in his hand broke it into a hundred pieces, and de- 
clared that on account of the wickedness of the 
princes God would thus shatter the kingdom of 
Judah. They put him in the stocks by the gate of 
the temple, and exposed him to the insults of the 

people. 

To this preaching against the bad morals of 
the princes and the bad religion of the priests, 
Jeremiah added his preaching against the bad 



198 



JEREMIAH 

politics of the king and his court. The victory of the 
Chaldeans over the Egyptians at Carchemish re- 
vealed to Jeremiah the fact that Nebuchadnezzar 
was the master of the world. King Jehoiakim did 
not believe it. It seemed to him, and to many 
others, that the Egyptians, in spite of their defeat, 
would yet conquer the Chaldeans. Thus there 
were two parties in Judah, a great Egyptian party 
planning revolt against Nebuchadnezzar, and a 
small Chaldean party, led by Jeremiah, urging the 
people to resist a rebellion so foolish and so certain 
to be fatal. 

In spite of Jeremiah, Jehoiakim rebelled against 
Chaldea. At first, Nebuchadnezzar sent only a 
few soldiers against him. Among the people whom 
these soldiers drove in from the fields to take 
refuge in Jerusalem were the Rechabites, whom 
Jeremiah made the text of a sermon. Their father, 
wishing to keep them from the evils of cities, had 
commanded them never to live in houses nor to 
drink wine. Even in Jerusalem they lived in the 
streets in tents, and drank no wine. "See/ 3 cried 
Jeremiah to the people, "how the Rechabites keep 
the commandment of their father, while you dis- 
obey the will of God/' 

Jehoiakim died before the storm which he had 

199 



PROPHETS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY 

invited broke upon the land. But Jehoiachin his 
son was carried captive to Babylon, and Jerusalem 
was plundered of its treasurers, and ten thousand 
leading citizens, with their wives and children, 
followed the exiled king. Jeremiah remained. 
But the people had not learned their lesson. The 
removal of the chief citizens had brought forward 
new and inferior men. They took the empty 
places, and moved into the empty houses, and 
accounted themselves in good luck. " The punish- 
ment of God," they said, "has come and is past. 
It was not so bad, after all." 

So there were two parties again under Zedekiah, 
as there had been under Jehoiakim. Not only the 
princes and the priests but the prophets belonged 
to the Egyptian party, all except Jeremiah. They 
said that the power of the Chaldeans should soon 
cease, and the captives should return. Jeremiah 
made a yoke and put it on his neck and said in a 
great assembly, "This is the yoke of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, which we and all the people of the earth 
must wear." But a prophet took the yoke from 
Jeremiah's neck and broke it. 

Thus King Zedekiah rebelled against the Chal- 
deans, and Nebuchadnezzar came again. At first, 
the Jews tried to get the help of God by freeing 

200 



JEREMIAH 

their brethren whom they held in slavery; but 
they took them back again. Jeremiah declared 
every day that Jerusalem would be taken, and 
the only wise course was to surrender. When the 
Chaldeans raised the siege for a little, being 
attacked by the Egyptians, Jeremiah started to 
go home to Anathoth. He was arrested at the gate 
and put in prison, and after that was thrown down 
into a well, which had only mud, however, and no 
water at the bottom. Out of this he was drawn up 
by a faithful friend. He continued, nevertheless, 
to declare the certain victory of the besiegers, until 
the tragic day came and verified his words. Neb- 
uchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and again car- 
ried away a great captivity. 

The Chaldeans treated Jeremiah with respect, 
but he chose to stay in the desolated land. There 
he was seized by his fleeing countrymen and 
carried into Egypt, where he is said to have died 
a martyr at their hands. Thus ended the long 
ministry of a brave man who never hesitated to 
rebuke vice no matter how powerful the sinner, 
and who never failed to be true to the convictions 
of his own conscience. 



201 



EZEKIEL 

1. The prophet's call, 1-3. 

2. Prophesies of destruction, 4-24. 

(1) The fall of Jerusalem, in symbols, 4-7. 

(2) The fall of Jerusalem, in visions, 8-11. 

(3) The fall of Jerusalem, in oracles, 12-24. 

2. Prophecies concerning foreign nations, 25-32. 

3. Prophecies of restoration, 33-39. 

(1) The new message, 33. 

(2) The new court, 34. 

(3) The new country, 35, 36. 

(4) The new people, 37. 

(5) The defeat of Gog, 38, 39. 

4. The city of God, 40-48. 

(1) The holy temple, 40-43. 

(2) The holy worship, 44-46. 

(3) The holy land, 47, 48. 

A MONG the leading citizens of Jerusalem who 
^ were carried by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon 
at the time of his first invasion, was a young priest 
named Ezekiel. He settled with the others by the 
rivers of Babylon; that is, by the irrigation canals 
which watered the plains in which that city stood. 
He became the leader of the captives. As Isaiah 
was the great prophet of the Assyrian invasion 

202 



EZEKIEL 

which destroyed the kingdom of Israel, and 
Jeremiah was the great prophet of the Chal- 
dean invasion which destroyed the kingdom of 
Judah, so Ezekiel was the great prophet of the 
exile. 

The first business of Ezekiel was to assure the 
people that Jerusalem should certainly be de- 
stroyed. They could not believe it. The city 
had, indeed, been taken, and they themselves had 
been brought away, but they were confidant of 
return. Daily they looked for some defeat of 
Babylon which should set them free. It was a 
part of their faith that Jerusalem was not only the 
holy city of their religion, but that God lived there, 
in the temple. In that day, the common belief 
was that each nation and land had its own God. 
"The Lord," the Jews said, "must preserve us His 
people, and Jerusalem His city, else what shall 
become of Him?" 

The vision by which Ezekiel was called to be a 
prophet was one in which he saw the Lord sitting 
on a wheeled throne, and as he looked, the wheels 
began to turn and the throne began to move, and 
the Lord came away from the temple and the 
city and left them far behind. The vision meant 
that God was not confined to any place. "Even 

203 



PROPHETS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY 

though Jerusalem be destroyed," said Ezekiel, 
"our God is here with us." 

Ezekiel taught, accordingly, that God intended 
to forsake Jerusalem. He reminded the exiles of 
the wickedness and idolatry against which Jere- 
miah was even then vainly preaching: idols of 
other gods standing in the temple, sacred cham- 
bers there with walls covered with painted reptiles 
and men swinging censers before them, women 
weeping for Tammuz, a Babylonian god of nature, 
men with their backs to the altar of the Lord, 
worshipping the sun. "To this," he said, "has 
religion come in the holy city, even in the temple ! 
Must they not be destroyed?" 

Thus passed ten years, and then the tragedy 
came. The temple and the city were destroyed, 
and over the long roads came the new companies 
of mourning captives to join their countrymen in 
Babylon. By the rivers of Babylon they sat down 
and wept when they remembered Zion. They 
hanged their harps upon the willows in the midst 
thereof. Their masters were not unkind, and 
wished to hear them sing their native songs, but 
they could not sing the Lord's song in a strange 

land. 

Now. however, Ezekiel became the preacher of 

204 



EZEKIEL 

hope and consolation. Jerusalem had been de- 
stroyed, but it should be rebuilded. Now the 
Second Isaiah sang the Lord's song, and though 
the land was strange the song was more filled with 
faith and music than any song had been before. 
Now, to keep in careful memory the manner of 
conducting the service of the temple, that record 
of ancient law was made which constitutes a great 
part of our book of Leviticus. 

Now Ezekiel began to picture for the people the 
new time coming, when they should return to their 
own land, and the land should be more fertile and 
beautiful than in the days of their fathers, and the 
city should be greater and finer than before, and 
the temple should far exceed in glory all the 
splendors of the temple of Solomon. Even the 
Jordan should become a wide and mighty river, 
and the Dead Sea should become a lake of sweet 
water, filled with fish. Down should come, he 
said, the vast nations of the north, the wild armies 
of Gog, the king of Magog, and should assail the 
people of the Lord in the Lord's land, and so great 
should be their total defeat that even their broken 
bows and arrows should provide the people for 
seven years with firewood! Thus the restored 
people, pure from sin and forsaking all other gods 

205 



THE PROPHETS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY 

and keeping the law, should dwell in peace and 
plenty, blessed of God forever. 

On these visions of Ezekiel the people lived all 
the dark time of the exile. And when as he 
promised they returned to their own country, they 
tried to realize them. They were no more a king- 
dom, nor have they been an independent nation 
since that day, but they became, as they are still, 
a church, a people held together by the faith and 
customs of their holy religion. This they owed to 
Ezekiel. In their darkest hour, he came and saved 
them. 



206 



OBADIAH, LAMENTATIONS, HAGGAI, 

ZECHARIAH 

1. Obadiah. The Fall of Jerusalem; the Laughter 

of Edom. 

(1) The downfall of Edom predicted, 1:1-9. 

(2) The downfall of Edom justified, 1:10-21. 

2. Lamentations; the Fall of Jerusalem; the Dis- 

tress of Judah. 

(1) The desolation of Zion, 1. 

(2) The indignation of God, 2. 

(3) The grief of the poet, 3. 

(4) During the siege, 4. 

(5) After the siege, 5. 

3. Haggai; the Rebuilding of the Temple; Exhor- 

tations 

(1) In the sixth month, (520), 1. ■ 

The temple must be built. 

(2) In the seventh month, 2:1-9. 

The new shall exceed the old. 

(3) In the ninth month, 2:10-23 

a. To the people, promising prosperity. 

b. To the governor, promising protection. 

4. Zechariah. The Rebuilding of the Temple. 

Visions. 

(1) Zechariah, 1-8. 

a. Visions of encouragement. 

b. Feasts for fasts. 

(2) Other prophets, 9-14. 

The Messianic Age. 
207 



THE PROPHETS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY 

T^HE fall of Jerusalem filled the hearts of the con- 
quered and exiled people with anger and with 
sorrow. The one hundred and thirty-seventh 
psalm shows how they felt. They sat down and 
wept when they remembered Zion. But even 
greater than their grief was the hatred with which 
they remembered Edom, for the men of Edom had 
rejoiced over their misfortunes; they had stood 
by during the destruction of the city and had 
cried, "Down with it! down with it, even to the 

ground !" 

These two feelings of anger and of sorrow, are 
expressed in two small books, the prophecy of 
Obadiah and the poem of Lamentations. 

The book of Obadiah is against Edom. The 
holy city has been destroyed, amidst the laughter 
of the Edomites, but Obadiah declares that a like 
calamity shall befall them. "You dwell among the 
rocks," he says, "and exult like an eagle whose 
nest is among the stars; but the Lord shall bring 
you down. You stood by, even you, our kinsmen, 
when foreigners came upon us and destroyed us; 
you stood in the crossway to cut off our escape; 
but shall suffer for it, you shaU be burned like 

stubble." 

The book of Lamentations belongs properly 

203 



OBADIAH, LAMENTATIONS 

among the poems, for it is a little collection of 
psalms. The subject of the book is the fall of 
Jerusalem. "How doth the city sit solitary that 
was full of people! Judah is gone into captivity 
because of affliction, and because of great servi- 
tude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she 
findeth no rest." The poet confesses that the 
ruin of the city was the result of the sins of the 
people, and he prays the Lord for mercy. "Behold, 
O Lord, for J am in distress!" Jerusalem lies in 
the dust, and they who pass by say, "Is this the 
city that men called the perfection of beauty, the 
joy of the whole earth?" In the name of the dis- 
tressed people, held in captivity in Babylon, the 
poet cries aloud, "Mine eye runneth down with 
water; mine eye trickleth down and ceaseth not, 
without any intermission. O Lord, thou hast seen 
my wrong, judge thou my cause." 

Between the books of Obadiah and Lamenta- 
tions concerning the destruction of the city in 586, 
and the books of Haggai and Zechariah concerning 
the restoration of the temple in 516, is a space 
of seventy years. 

The exiles had returned in 536, but they had 
long delayed the rebuilding of their church. They 
had by no means realized the splendid vision of 

209 



THE PROPHETS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY 

Ezekiel. They had occupied themselves in the 
construction of their own houses, which they had 
erected on the ruins of the city. Zerubbabel the 
governor and Joshua the high priest had not been 
able to persuade the people to restore the temple. 
The walls of the sanctuary which Solomon had 
built lay upon the ground. It is likely that the 
ancient altar of sacrifice, made of the unhewn rock 
of the hill, was still held sacred, and that there the 
worship of the Lord was still maintained; but the 
temple lay in ruins. 

Some of the people said, "We must build our 
houses first, we must have a roof over our heads. ,, 
And that interested them so much that they for- 
got to build the church. 

Some said, "The Samaritans stopped us when 
we began to build. They will come again and 
hinder us if we begin anew. We must wait till we 
are strong enough to fight them; or until the king 
of Persia sends soldiers to protect us." 

Some said, " We must tarry till we have a leader. 
The Messiah, promised by Micah and Isaiah, by 
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, must first come." 

Then arose Haggai and Zechariah and urged 
the people to begin at once. 

Haggai addressed the high priest and the gov- 

210 



HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH 

ernor, and told them that it was their duty to 
rebuild the Lord's house. When the people, in 
their discouragement, said, "We can never restore 
the temple to its old glories of the time of Solo- 
mon," he said, "The building may not be so fine, 
but the best part of a church is the spirit of those 
who worship in it. The Lord shall come to the new 
temple, and bring blessings with him." 

Zechariah confirmed the word of Haggai. He 
said, "I saw the Lord's chariots and horses going 
up and down the earth, and reporting the peace 
and quiet of all nations, and I heard the word of 
the Lord saying, 'Now shall my house be built !' " 
He said, "I saw the great nations as four beasts 
with horns, and a carpenter sawing off their horns 
that they may do no more hurt with them." He 
said, "I saw a man with a measuring line laying 
out the plan of a new Jerusalem, whose walls are 
the fire of the Lord." 

He encouraged Joshua, saying that God was on 

his side ; and Zerubbabel, in whom he hoped to see 

the Messiah, long-expected. He said that the 

people were like a golden lamp, and that Joshua 

and Zerubbabel were like olive trees, one on each 

side, to supply the lamp with oil. He saw the 

sins of the people, written on a roll, flying away; 

211 



PROPHETS OF THE SIXTH CENTURY 

and the guilt of the people, as a woman put *n a 
chest, carried off to Babylon. 

He said that the fasts, which the people had 
kept in remembrance of the destruction of the 
temple, should now be changed to feasts. He 
looked for the near approach of Messiah's time 
when the whole land, with the new temple in the 
midst of it, should be filled with prosperity and 
grace. 

Afterwards, other writings were attached to the 
paper on which the prophecy of Zechariah was 
written. These are contained in the ninth and 
following chapters. They speak of sins and dis- 
tresses of the people, of enemies in Syria and 
Egypt, of a siege and capture of Jerusalem, and 
of the establishment of the reign of Messiah over 
all the earth. They are quite different from the 
earlier chapters, both in subject and in manner of 
writing. But by whom they were written, and 
when they were written, nobody knows. Perhaps 
in the second century before Christ when the Jews 
were contending with the Greeks. 



212 



MALACHI, JOEL, JONAH 

1. Malachi. Concerning Indifference. 

(1) The offences of the people, 1 :l-3, 12. 

a. In worship. 

b. In society and in business. 

c. In the withholding of offerings. 

(2) The day of the Lord, 3:13-4:6. 

2. Joel. Concerning the Locusts and the Day of the 

Lord. 

(1) The prophet speaks 1-2:17. 

Locusts and famine; prayer and fasting. 

(2) The Lord answers, 2:18-3:21. 

a. Blessings, material and spiritual. 

b. The day of the Lord. 

3. Jonah. Concerning Hatred of the Gentiles. 

(1) The evasion of Jonah, 1, 2. 

a. The disobedience of the prophet. 
6. The storm and the fish. 

c. The hymn of praise. 

(2) The Mission of Jonah, 3. 

a. The repentance of the people 

6. The disappointment of the preacher. 

HpHE temple was rebuilt, but the people were not 

reformed. The urging of Haggai and Zecha- 

riah had led to the completion of the sanctuary, 

but on the day of the dedication the older men 

213 



PROPHETS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, AND AFTER 

had shed tears; partly because the new building 
was so inferior to the old, and because the people, 
with all their enthusiasm and shouting, cared so 
little for religion. 

This indifference continued. The people, who 
had been so much more interested in building 
their houses than in building the Lord's house 
entered with little devotion into the new services. 
They brought for sacrifices the lambs which were 
not good for food, and the priests made no objec- 
tion. They gave so little money that it was diffi- 
cult to maintain the music and the dignity of the 
worship. And they said that, so far as they could 
see, God cared little whether they were good or 
bad. He blessed the wicked quite as much as the 

righteous. 

This was the situation which was met by the 
prophet Malachi. His ministry was between that 
of Haggai and Zechariah, on one side, and that of 
Ezra and Nehemiah, on the other. He reproved 
the people for their indifference to the services of 
the temple, and for the smallness of their offerings. 
As for the complaint that God makes no difference 
between the evil and the good, " A day is coming/' 
he said, "in which you shall see the hand of God. 
In that day, the good shall be rewarded and the 

214 



MALACHI, JOEL, JONAH 

bad punished. The Lord shall come, and they who 
have been faithful to Him shall be blessed/ ' 

In the time of Joel, a hundred years after, it 
seemed as if the day of the Lord was indeed at 
hand. A fearful disaster is overtaking the people. 
The land is being desolated by what seems to be 
an invasion of locusts. "The vine is dried up, and 
the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, 
the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the 
trees of the field are withered.' ' The day of the 
Lord is nigh at hand, "a day of darkness and of 
gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness." 
The locusts are its heralds. "The land is as the 
garden of Eden before them, and behind them a 
desolate wilderness." Joel calls the people to 
repent and fast and pray. He promises that in 
answer to their grief and prayer the Lord shall 
drive away their enemies, and save them. 

Then passes another century, and more, and 
the book of Jonah is addressed to a people who are 
again suffering affliction. Now the scourge is 
not the locusts and the famine, but the increased 
oppression of the Greeks. As the Persians fol- 
lowed the Chaldeans, so the Persians have been 
followed by the Greeks. The land lies under the 
oppression of the Gentiles. And, year by year, 

215 



PROPHETS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, AND AFTER 

this oppression embitters the mind of the people. 
Year by year, they hate the Gentiles more than 

before. 

The Jews were a people with a divine mission. 
It was said at the beginning to Abraham that in 
his family all the nations of the earth should be 
blessed. The truth concerning the nature and the 
will of God which the Jews had was to be taught 
by them to all their neighbors. They were to 
make the whole world better. They were to save 
the nations out of their old idolatries, and to raise 
the standard of righteous living. 

For a long time, as we have seen, the Jews were 
fully occupied in overcoming their own tempta- 
tions to unrighteousness and to idolatry. They 
confessed that the destruction of their national 
life was the just result of their failure to keep the 
will of God. But when they were ready, after the 
exile, to enter at last upon their mission, and to 
teach the Gentiles the great lessons which they 
had learned, their sufferings, while they had im- 
proved their morals and their religion, had made 
them hate the people whom they might have 
taught. The book of Esther shows their bitter 

feeling. 

The book of Jonah is about a foreign mission 



216 



MALACHI, JOEL, JONAH 

conducted by a man who is filled with the spirit 
of that time. Jonah is sent to preach to Nineveh 
and he sets out in precisely the opposite direction; 
being told by God to go east to Assyria, he starts 
to go west to Spain. He takes a ship for Tarshish. 
There is a storm and a shipwreck and an adven- 
ture with a fish, and Jonah learns that when God 
tells him to do a thing, he must obey. 

Thus Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches. His 
sermon, in one sentence, is "Yet forty days and 
Nineveh shall be overthrown." Then he sits down 
on the side of a neighboring hill and waits for the 
appointed destruction. But in the meantime the 
people of Nineveh, moved by Jonah's preaching, 
repent, and the forty days pass and they are not 
destroyed. Then Jonah is very angry. He re- 
proves God. "You have saved these miserable 
Ninevites," he says, "whom you promised to 
destroy." He is grieved to the heart that his 
mission has been successful. That was the least 
of his desires. He wished to see those Gentiles and 
all the other Gentiles struck with lightning. God 
reproves the angry prophet, and tells him — what 
the Jews of that age were forgetting — that all the 
people of the world are the sons and daughters of 
God. 

217 



DANIEL 

1. Narratives, 1-6. 

1. The adventure of the king's meat. 

2. The king dreams of an image. 

3. The adventure of a fiery furnace. 

4. The king dreams of a tree. 

5. The adventure of the writing on the wall. 

6. The adventure of the den of lions. 

2. Visions, 7-12. 

1. The first vision of the little horn. 

2. The second vision of the little horn. 

3. The vision of the seventy weeks. 

4. The vision of the contending angels. 

5. The vision of the abomination of desolation. 

T OOKING back, now, over our long journey 
through the Old Testament, we see that we 
have been studying the history of about fifteen hun- 
dred years. The earlier dates are all uncertain, 
but it is a fair and convenient guess that Abraham 
was making his adventurous journey to Palestine 
about the year 1500 B. C. And we may be helped 
to remember it by reflecting that it was almost 
1500 A. D., when Columbus was making his still 
more adventurous voyage to America. 

Making a second guess, we may say that Moses 

218 



DANIEL 

was bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and mak- 
ing a nation of them, about the year 1250. 

It is a certain fact, without any guess, that 
David, with Saul before him and Solomon after 
him, was establishing the people as a kingdom 
about the year 1000. 

Thus we have three easy dates : Abraham 1500, 
Moses 1250, David 1000. 

Then, about 750, being just in the middle of our 
Old Testament history, we find Jeroboam II 
reigning in Israel, and Uzziah reigning in Judah 
and the Bible just begining to be gathered together 
out of ancient memories and records into the books 
which now compose it. 

After that, the dates are certain and definite: 
the fall of the kingdom of Israel completed by the 
destruction of Samaria at the hands of the Assy- 
rians, under Sargon, in 722; the fall of the king- 
dom of Judah completed by the destruction of 
Jerusalem at the hands of the Chaldeans, under 
Nebuchadnezzar, in 586; the exiled Jews per- 
mitted to return to their own land, in subjection 
to the Persians, under Cyrus, in 536. 

The next important date is the conquest of the 
Persian empire by Alexander in 332. This brought 
the Jews under new masters, the Greeks. The 

219 



PROPHETS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, AND AFTER 

Greek period of Jewish history is not recorded in 
the books of the Bible which we commonly read, 
but in other books sometimes bound up with 
the Bible, but more often not, called the Apocry- 
pha. The books of Maccabees in the Apocrypha 
tell how the Greeks oppressed the Jews. They 
add to the list of the foreign kings who ruled the 
Jews — Sargon the Assyrian, Nebuchadnezzar the 
Chaldean, and Cyrus the Persian — the name of 
Antiochus the Greek. In the days of this king, 
whose reign was ended only a little more than a 
hundred and fifty years before Christ, the book of 
Daniel was written. 

The sufferings of the Jews under Antiochus the 
Greek were largely due to his determination to turn 
them all into Greeks. His plan was to change both 
their customs and their religion. He captured 
Jerusalem by attacking the city on a Sabbath day 
when the men would not fight. He placed a Greek 
altar — which the Jews called "the abomination of 
desolation" — on the altar of sacrifice. He burned 
the sacred books, wherever he could find them. 
He broke down the carved work of the temple with 
axes and hammers, and he tried to compel all the 
Jews to give up their worship of the Lord, under 

pain of death. Against him rose up the Maccabees 

220 



DANIEL 

and succeeded at last in setting the people iree. 
But they were only beginning their heroic struggle 
when the author of Daniel was writing his book. 
The storm was raging about them, and their hearts 
were failing them for fear. This book was written 
to console and encourage these grievously afflicted 
people. 

Daniel, the hero of the book, is introduced to 
the reader in the first chapter as one of the Jewish 
exiles in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar has been 
attracted to him, and has caused him to be edu- 
cated, with three other Jewish youths, in his own 
court. One night, the king has a dream, and in 
the morning he has forgotten what it was. He 
calls his wise men and says, "Tell me what I 
dreamed last night, and then tell me what it 
meant. " When they fail, Daniel comes forward. 
"You dreamed/' he says, "of a great image, with 
head of gold, breast and arms of silver, body of 
brass, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay. And 
a stone was thrown at the image which broke it 
into pieces, and the stone became a mountain. 
The image represents the kingdoms of the world, 
beginning with the Chaldean — the head of gold — 

and coming down to the Greek — the feet of iron 

221 



PROPHETS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY, AND AFTER 

and clay; the stone is the kingdom of God, the 
nation of the Jews." 

Nebuchadnezzar makes a golden image, to 
which all men must bow down, under penalty of 
being thrown into a fiery furnace. Daniel and his 
three companions will not bow, and are thrust into 
the furnace. But God protects them. They walk 
in the midst of the fire unharmed. 

Then Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by being 
deprived of his reason, so that for seven years he 
eats grass like an ox. And Belshazzar, his suc- 
cessor, is humbled by the writing of a hand on the 
wall of his banquet hall declaring that he shall be 
overthrown. Daniel interprets the prophecy, and 
that night it is fulfilled. 

The next king, Darius, is induced by enemies 
of Daniel to forbid all men for thirty days to make 
their prayers to any god or man except to the 
king himself, under penalty of being cast into a 
den of lions. Daniel kneeling at his open window 
towards Jerusalem, prays to the Lord in spite of 
the decree and is thrown to the lions. But God 
protects him; the mouths of the lions are stopped. 

The purpose of these stories of heroism and faith 
is to assure the people that God will help them as 
He helped Daniel. As He saved Daniel frpm 

222 



DANIEL 

Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, from flames and 
lions, so will He save the Jews from the power of 
Antiochus. 

This assurance is repeated in a series of visions. 
It was a time when it was not safe to speak plainly, 
and call Antiochus by name. The writer spoke, 
accordingly, in symbols, which wise men would 
understand. 

Daniel said, "I saw four beasts, and one had ten 
horns, and another little horn speaking proud 
things. And the Ancient of Days judged the little 
horn, and the beast was put to death. After that, 
the beasts being destroyed, the saints of the Most 
High possessed the earth." The beasts are the 
world-powers — Chaldean, Persians, Median and 
Greek. The ten horns are the ten generals among 
whom the kingdom of Alexander the Greek was 
divided. The little horn is Antiochus. 

He said, "I saw a fight between a ram with two 
horns and a goat with one horn. The goat smote 
the ram and broke his horns. Then the goat's one 
horn grew into four, and out of one of them came 
a little horn raging against Judah and against God, 
destroying the temple. " The ram is the Medo- 
Persian empire. The goat is the power of the 

223 



PROPHETS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY AND AFTER, 

Greeks, whose horn is Alexander : the four horns 
are the four principal kingdoms which followed; 
the little horn is Antiochus. 

He said, "The angel Gabriel told me that the 
seventy years of exile mean seventy weeks of years, 
i. e. seventy multiplied by seven. Then/ he said, 
'there shall be great desolation in the city and the 
temple, and the sacrifice shall cease, but the end 
shall come soon'." When the Jews figured this 
out, they found that it was a promise of deliver- 
ance out of great tribulation in their own day. 
Only a few years more, and the oppressor should be 
overthrown. 

Another vision of Daniel describes the long 
contention between the Greek kings of Egypt and 
the Greek kings of Syria, the rise of Antiochus 
in Syria, his unsuccessful invasion of Egypt, his 
persecution of the Jews. It promises the death of 
Antiochus and the coming of the Messianic Age. 
" Blessed is he that waiteth. Go thou thy way 
till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in 
thy lot at the end of the days." 

Thus the hearts of the afflicted people were en- 
couraged, their expectation was directed to the 
coming of the great prince, the Messiah, who 

224 



DANIEL 



should deliver them out of the hands of their 
oppressors, and make them again a great and 
happy people. They were in this expectation a 
hundred and fifty years after the book of Daniel, 
when Christ came at last. 



225 



NFW TESTAMENT 

THE GOSPELS 




Matthew, Makk, Luke and John 



Jordaens 



THE GOSPELS 

1. St. Mark. 

(1) The earliest gospel. 

(2) By a companion of St. Peter. 

(3) A narrative of events. 

2. St. Matthew. 

(1) Mark's narrative of events, into which is 

inserted : 

(2) A report of the discourses of Jesus, by the 

apostle Matthew. 

3 St. Luke. 

(1) Mark's narrative of events, into which is 

inserted : 

(2) A selection from the discourses of Jesus by 

the apostle Matthew, and also 

(3) A report of the discourses of Jesus from 

some other source; edited by a com- 
panion of St. Paul. 

4. St. John. 

(1) The latest gospel. 

(2) An interpretation of the teaching and per- 

son of Jesus by the apostle John. 

HpHE word Gospel means good news. The good 
news is that the Great Deliverer, the Mes- 
siah, promised by the prophets, has at last come. 
The four gospels are four accounts of His life and 
teaching. 

229 



THE GOSPELS 

A new part of the Bible begins with these books, 
because — with the book of Acts — they contain 
the history of a new revolution. 

The Old Testament revolution, in the days of 
Rehoboam and Jeroboam, separated the Bible 
people into the kingdoms of Judah and of Israel. 
They were still, however, of one race and of one 

religion. 

The New Testament revolution, in the days of 
Annas the high priest and Paul the apostle, sepa- 
ated the Bible people into two churches, Jewish 
and Christian, different in religion and in race. 

The difference between the Bible people who con- 
tinued to be Jews and the Bible people who be- 
came Christians began in a difference of belief 
concerning Jesus of Nazareth. The Christians 
believed that He was the Messiah, or, as they said 
in Greek, the Christ. The Jews did not believe it. 

They did not believe it because He paid so little 
heed to some of their religious customs — their 
church rules— which He said did not help people 
to be truly religious. And they did not believe it 
because He showed no interest whatever in doing 
the thing which they thought the Christ, when He 
really came, would do : He seemed to have no in- 
tention to free His nation from their foreign rulers. 

230 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

Indeed, His whole concern was to save people not 
from taxes or from Roman tyranny, but from 
their sins. And this concern He felt, not as re- 
garded the Jews only, but as regarded all people, 
Jews and Gentiles. 

Thus they were grievously disappointed when 
they found that He would not be their king; and 
they were alarmed when they found that His in- 
fluence among the people tended to diminish 
their obedience to the law, and to break down the 
old distinction between Jews and Gentiles. In- 
stead of accepting him as their Christ, long-ex- 
pected and sent from God, they arrested Him, 
tried and condemned Him as a disturber of the 
public peace, and as making a false and blasphe- 
mous claim to be the Christ, and put Him to death 
upon a cross. 

They who believed that He was indeed the 
Christ were confirmed in their faith by seeing Him 
alive after His death. In the strength of this 
faith, they went about declaring to all people that 
Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified, was the 
Christ, and that He had come to save not only 
Jews but Gentiles, and to save both Jews and 
Gentiles from their sins. This, they said, He was 
able to do because God was in Him, and His words 

231 



THE GOSPELS 



were the very truth of God. "God was in Christ, 
reconciling the world unto Himself. " At last, in 
the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, we know of a 
certainty, they said, the love of God and the will 
of God; we may have, if we will, the help of God 
here, and the eternal blessing of God hereafter. 

This is the good news which gives to these ac- 
counts of the life of Christ a name so full of hope 
and joy. They contain the gospel of Salvation. 

Of the four gospels, the first to be written in its 
present form was probably that of St. Mark. This 
is mainly a record of the deeds of Christ, rather 
than of His words. It tells how He went about 
doing good. It describes particularly how He 
looked; what indignation there was in His face 
one time when He saw that the church people 
cared more to have their rules kept than to have 
a sick man cured; what courage He showed as He 
started to go to Jerusalem to meet His enemies, 
so that they who walked behind Him in the road 
were amazed to see Him. Thus, although we are 
not told much that He said, the accounts of what 
He did are so clear that they seem to be given by 
one who was present with Him. 

St. Mark's gospel contains no reference to the 
writer. He did not sign it with his name. It is 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

called the gospel according to St. Mark because 
the earfy Christians believed that St. Mark wrote 
it. They believed also that St. Mark knew what 
to write because St. Peter told him. That is the 
account of the making of this gospel which was 
accepted in the early church, and there is no reason 
to doubt it. Mark himself was probably too 
young to have been a disciple during the ministry 
of Jesus, but his mother's house in Jerusalem was 
a common meeting place for the disciples. It is 
possible that the Last Supper was eaten in its 
upper room. It is certain that St. Peter was there 
often. Mark was thus a young man who knew 
Peter and the apostles, the nephew of Barnabas, 
the companion on a missionary journey of Barnabas 
and Paul. 

While Mark was thus writing down what Peter 
told him about the deeds of Christ — or perhaps 
earlier than that — an apostle, one of the twelve, 
St. Matthew, was making a record of His words. 
He was preserving for his own use and for the good 
of others what he remembered of the sermon on 
the mount, and of the parables of Jesus, and of the 
other teaching to which he had listened. The lan- 
guage which Jesus spoke is called Aramaic, and 
was the form of Hebrew which was then used in 

233 



THE GOSPELS 

Palestine. In this language, Matthew made his 
record. This again, like the authorities of the 
gospel of St. Mark, is reported by the early Chris- 
tians. It is stated plainly by a second-century 
writer named Papias. 

The gospel according to St. Matthew, as we 
have it, differs in two respects from the work of 
Matthew: it has been translated into Greek; and 
the translator, or somebody else, has added to it 
nearly all of the gospel according to St. Mark. 
What we have, therefore, in this book is an account 
of the sayings of Jesus as recorded by Matthew, 
set here and there into the framework of the doings 
of Jesus as recorded by Mark. 

The third gospel begins with a statement of the 
purpose and method of the writer. Presently, we 
find that the Acts of the Apostles begins in much 
the same way. Thus it is plain that these two 
books are from the same hand. The ancient and 
general belief is that the writer was St. Luke, who 
was a companion of St. Paul. Matthew was an 
apostle, and wrote what he heard with his own 
ears. Mark wrote what he was told by Peter who 
saw with his own eyes. Luke is somewhat farther 
removed from the events which he describes, for 
of these things even Paul could not inform him of 

234 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

his own experience. So Luke says at the beginning 
of his gospel that he went about the making of his 
book in the manner of all good writers of history; 
he read whatever he could find written, and asked 
questions of all who had original knowledge. 

One of the books which he read was the gospel 
of St. Mark, for he makes it the framework of his 
writing, as Matthew did. Probably he read also 
the gospel of St. Matthew, for we have in many 
places the words of Jesus reported just as Matthew 
reported them. In addition to these two sources, 
he had a third, for his chapters from the ninth to 
the eighteenth contain sayings and doings of 
Jesus which are not found in either Mark or 
Matthew. 

In the first three gospels the order of events is 
mostly the same, being derived from St. Mark. 
The scene is Galilee, with little about Jerusalem 
except at the end. Jesus is heard speaking in 
brief, plain sentences. In the fourth gospel the 
. order of events is different, no use being made 
of St. Mark. The scene is almost entirely in 
Jerusalem. Jesus is heard speaking in long, mys- 
tical sentences. This gospel bears the name of 
St. John. 

Two things are clear about the gospel of St. 

235 



THE GOSPELS 

John. One is that the report of the sayings of 
Jesus is made in much the same manner of writing 
as is found in John's epistles. That means that 
the author has recorded what Jesus said not always 
in the actual words of Jesus, but often in his own 
words. The other fact is that not all of the gospel 
was written by St. John; the last two verses, 
for example, are not by him but about him. The 
fourth gospel is probably related to St. John as 
the first gospel is related to St. Matthew. The 
heart of the first gospel is Matthew's remembrance 
of the public teaching of Jesus; the heart of the 
fourth gospel is John's remembrance of the private 
teaching of Jesus. To each of these gospels other 
good men contributed such additions as they were 
able to make. 

The first three are narrative gospels; they con- 
tain accounts of what Jesus said and did. The 
fourth is an interpretive gospel; long after the 
crucifixion and the resurrection, as the person and 
work of Jesus were seen more clearly in the light 
of thought and prayer, the disciple who knew Him 
best declared their inner meaning. He tried to 
impart to us the faith in Christ as the Son of God 
which filled his soul. 



236 




St. Matthew 



Rembrandt 



THE MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

Matthew 1-4, Mark 1 :14, Luke 1-3, John 1-3. 

1. The birth and childhood of Jesus. 

(1) The angel and the forerunner, Luke 1 :l-25, 

57-80. 

(2) The angel and the Virgin Mother, Luke 

1 :26-56. 

(3) The angels and the shepherds, Luke 2 :l-40 

(4) The visit of the Wise Men, Matthew 2. 

(5) The visit to the temple, Luke 2:41-52. 

2. The first year of the ministry. 

(1) The preaching of John the Baptist, Mat- 

thew 3. 

(2) The baptism of Jesus, Matthew 3:13-17. 

(3) The temptation, Matthew 4:1-11. 

(4) The first disciples, John 1:35-51. 

(5) The wedding at Cana, John 2:1-12. 

(6) The expulsion of the traders, John 2 :13-25. 

(7) The interview with Nicodemus, John 3:1 

-21. 

'T^HE Romans were now the rulers of Palestine. 
The revolt of Judas Maccabeus against the 
Greek kings of Syria had won for the Jews only a 
brief liberty; but the oppression of the Greeks was 
never again so heavy as in the days of Antiochus 

237 



THE GOSPELS 

when the book of Daniel was being written. In 
the sixty-third year before the birth of Christ, 
almost exactly a hundred years after the book of 
Daniel came to the rescue of the faith of the Jews, 
and the battles of Maccabeus came to the rescue 
of their freedom, the Roman general Pompey con- 
quered Syria. He captured Jerusalem. He en- 
tered the temple, and made his way into the Holy 
of Holies, expecting to discover there some strange 
idol and was amazed to find it empty. Thus the 
Romans came into control. 

When Christ was born, Herod was called the 
king of the Jews, but he ruled only by permission 
of the Romans. The master of Palestine, and of 
all the countries which lay about the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, was Caesar Augustus. 

The birth of Christ is connected by St. Luke with 
the taking of a Roman census. This enrollment 
brought down from Nazareth of Galilee to Beth- 
lehem of Judea a descendant of David, named 
Joseph, with Mary his wife. The family of Joseph 
was better than his fortunes, for he was a poor man 
who earned his living by the trade of a carpenter. 
Thus, however, was fulfilled the prophecy of Micah 
that the Great Deliverer should come not from 
the rich, the powerful, the dwellers in courts find 

238 




The Nativity 



Hofmann 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

cities, but from the plain people : he should be like 
David, when he came to the throne of Israel from 
the pasture where he tended the sheep. In David's 
own town, and in the lineage of David, Jesus 
Christ was born. 

The gospels tell how an angel announced to His 
mother that her son should be the Saviour of His 
people, and how when He was born the angels 
sang in the sky over the fields where shepherds 
watched their flocks. But when the shepherds 
came to see the child, they found Him cradled in a 
manger. Joseph and Mary had come to Bethle- 
hem in such a crowded time that there was no room 
for them at the inn, and thus the child was born 
in a stable. 

St. Matthew's gospel says that out of the east 
came men who followed a star until it brought 
them to the child in Bethlehem, to whom they 
gave gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 
, This so aroused the fear of Herod, lest a new king 
should claim his throne, that Joseph and Mary 
took the child and fled to Egypt. 

St. Luke's gospel says that when at last they 
returned to Nazareth, the child increased in wis- 
dom and stature and in favor with God and man. 

239 



THE GOSPELS 

One time, when He was twelve years old, He went 
with His parents to Jerusalem to the Passover. 
On their return, with a caravan of their Nazareth 
neighbors, they looked for Him at the end of the 
first day's journey, and when they could not find 
Him they went back to Jerusalem. There they 
found Him in the temple, listening to the teachers 
of the law of God, and asking them questions. 

Nothing else is told us of His life up to the 
beginning of His ministry, but this is enough to 
show us that the lad was both friendly and studious. 
It was not thought strange that He should be 
absent a whole day with His " kinsfolk and ac- 
quaintance," i. e. with his boy companions. He 
thought it strange, however, that when they 
sought Him they did not look first in the temple, 
knowing that there they would be most likely to 
find Him. His spirit was at the same time social 
and serious. He spoke, one day, of the games 
which they used to play in the Nazareth streets, 
where they pretended to be at a wedding or at a 
funeral, with wedding music and funeral mourning, 
and how some children refused to play at all : He 
was not of that kind. But it is plain that His 
deeper interests were in books, — the histories and 
poems and prophecies which are bound together 

240 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

now in the Old Testament. These He read, and 
thought upon, and learned by heart. 

Joseph seems to have died during this time, for 
there is no more mention made of him. In that 
case, Jesus by His daily labor as a carpenter would 
have the responsibility of the family support. 
There were four brothers, named James and 
Joseph and Simon and Judas, and two or three 
sisters. 

The ministry of Christ, with which the gospels 
of St. Mark and St. John begin, is divided in St. 
John's gospel into three parts, by the mention of 
three celebrations of the Passover. 

Jesus was called from the carpenter's bench to 
the ministry by the preaching of John the Baptist. 
John was a cousin of Jesus, his mother Elizabeth 
being a kinswoman of Jesus' mother Mary. His 
father was a priest named Zacharias. He had 
early devoted himself to the special service of God, 
and had gone to live in the wilderness to prepare 
his soul by prayer and fasting. More and more it 
was made clear to him, in his long solitary days, 
that the time must be at hand when the Great 
Deliverer should come. He thought of the sins and 
sorrows of the people. He saw them under the 
power of the Romans, ruled by princes and priests 

241 



THE GOSPELS 

such as those who had stirred the indignation of 
the old prophets. Augustus had been followed 
on the throne of the Roman world by Tiberius. 
The Herod of the time of Jesus' birth was dead, 
but Herod his son was the ruler of Galilee and 
Pontius Pilate was the ruler of Judea. 

Jesus was thirty years old when John began to 
preach. John stood by the river Jordan, dressed 
like Elijah, in a cloak of camel's skin, and spoke of 
their sins, to all who came to hear him. Publicans 
came, who collected the Roman taxes; soldiers 
came, who kept the Roman rule over the people; 
Pharisees came, who taught the law of God in 
meeting-houses called synagogues; Sadducees 
came, who conducted the worship of God in the 
temple; wise and unwise, good and bad, they 
came; and to them all John spoke with great 
plainness. "I am not the Christ,'' he said, when 
they asked him if he was himself the Great Deliv- 
erer. "But the Christ is at hand. Even now He 
stands unknown among you." He told them that 
in order to be able to know Christ and follow Him 
they must repent of their sins, and those who 
repented he washed in the river, baptizing them as 
a sign that they had clean hearts. Thus he was 
called John the Baptist. 

242 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

Among those who came to hear this preacher 
was Jesus. As he listened, a new light shone in 
His soul. A voice spoke which He alone heard. 
The voice said, "Thou art the Son of God." He 
knew that that meant that He was to be the de- 
liverer long-expected, the Saviour of the people. 
As He was baptized, the sky shone above Him, 
and the blessing of God came upon Him. 

After that, He returned no more to the trade of 
the carpenter. He saw that He was called to a 
different kind of work. Immediately, He went 
away into a desert place, and there spent many 
days considering this great matter, and making 
ready for His new duties. He determined to give 
Himself wholly to this ministry, without thinking 
of His own interests, or providing for His own 
needs. " I might turn stones into bread," He said, 
"to feed myself, but I will not." He determined 
to go about His mission quietly, relying on the 
truth rather than on any signs from the sky. "I 
might compel men to believe in me," He said, "by 
casting myself from the roof of the temple, and 
coming down into the midst of the people, carried 
on the wings of angels, but I will not." He deter- 
mined to make no compromise, to use no force nor 
pretense, to take no account of what the people 

243 



THE GOSPELS 

liked, but to tell them plainly the will of God, 
whether they liked it or not. "I might make 
alliance with the devil," He said, "and thus gain 
all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
them, but I will not." Having made these im- 
portant principles perfectly plain to Himself, He 
came out, and began His ministry. 

He gathered about Him a little group of faithful 
friends: first two fishermen from the Lake of 
Galilee, Andrew and Peter, who had come down, 
like Jesus, to hear John the Baptist preach. These 
He found when He came out of the desert. With 
them He returned to Galilee, and found two more 
disciples, James and John, partners of Andrew and 
Peter. After these, two others joined the company, 
Philip and Nathaniel. 

Nathaniel lived in Cana, near Nazareth. 
Neither Nazareth nor Cana was far distant from 
the lake. It is likely that Jesus knew all of those 
young men before. Thus, when there was a 
wedding in Cana, they were all invited, and they 
went together. It is interesting to remember that 
the first occasion to which Christ took His disciples 
was this cheerful festivity. It shows how He 
entered into natural life, not holding Himself 
apart. He came not like John the Baptist dwelling 

244 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: FIRST YEAR 

in the wilderness, and wearing a strange dress, but, 
as He had determined, like other men, quietly and 
informally, increasing the joy of life. At the wed- 
ding in Cana, St. John says, He changed water 
into wine. This passes our understanding, but we 
can understand well enough that such an act was a 
symbol of all His purpose, to make the most com- 
mon life as rich as the rarest wine. 

Then came the Passover, and He went to Jeru- 
salem. Herod the Great had rebuilt the temple, 
making it splendid again, as in the days of Solomon. 
Indeed, the court about it was twice as large as it 
had been before. But this court was now a scene 
of disorder. At the time of the Passover it was 
changed to a great market. In booths on all sides 
men were selling sheep and oxen and doves for 
sacrifice, and changing Roman money into Jewish 
that it might be paid into the temple treasury. 
It was a place not of prayer but of merchandise. 

Against this profanation Jesus protested. It 
was His first public act. He showed Himself to 
the people as one who stood for God against wrong- 
doing. He took a whip of small cords and drove 
the traders out. It was at once plain, however, 
that neither the rulers not the people were inclined 
to join themselves to this new prophet, or to take 

245 



THE GOSPELS 

His part in reforming public abuses. The traders 
were very angry; the rulers, who profited by the 
traffic in the temple, while they did not venture 
to arrest Him, showed that they resented His 
interference. The people seem to have applauded 
Him, but not very heartily. 

Only one man is remembered to have sought out 
Jesus, and to have shown some disposition to 
become a disciple. His name was Nicodemus, and 
he was a very important person indeed, being a 
member of the Sanhedrin, the senate of the Jews. 
But he wished to keep his discipleship secret, and 
Jesus would not receive him on those terms. 
Jesus said that if Nicodemus really wished to be 
His disciple, he must so change his whole life that 
it would be like being born again. 

Thus closed the first period of the ministry of 
Christ. He withdrew from Jerusalem and returned 
to Galilee. 



246 



THE MINISTRY OF CHRIST: SECOND 

YEAR 

Matthew 5:1-15:20, Mark 1:15-7:22, Luke 4:1-9:17, John 
4-6. 

1. The ministry of mercy. 

(1) The sample day, Mark 1 :21-39. 

(2) The man with the palsy 2:1-12. 

(3) The man with the withered hand 3:1-6. 

(4) The man with the legion 5:1-19. 

(5) The ruler's daughter 5:21-43. 

2. The ministry of truth. 

(1) Among the Samaritans, John 4. 

(2) The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7. 

(3) The Sermon of Parables, Matthew 13. 

(4) The Crisis at Capernaum. 

a. The miracle, the sermon, the deser- 

tion of the disciples, John 6. 

b. The opposition of the Pharisees, Mat- 

thew 15:1-20. 

^pHE Holy Land, in the time of Christ, was in 
three main divisions. In the south was Judea, 
in the place of the old kingdom of Judah; in the 
middle was Samaria, in the place of the old king- 
dom of Israel; in the north was Galilee. Thus 
when Jesus, after the first Passover, went from 

247 



THE GOSPELS 

Judea into Galilee, He passed through Samaria. 
He might have taken another road on the other 
side of the Jordan, through the Jewish district of 
Perea. But the Samaritan road was more direct. 
For many years, the Jews had had no dealings 
with the Samaritans. These people were de- 
scended from ancestors who were half Jew and 
half Assyrian. As we have seen, the Jews who re- 
turned from the exile, pure in blood and in re- 
ligion, declined to accept their friendship. Thus 
they became enemies. When the Jews wished to 
call a man a particularly mean name, they called 
him a Samaritan. 

Christ began the second year of His ministry 
by disregarding this old prejudice. He walked up 
through Samaria, stopped to rest at Jacob's well, 
near Shechem, talked there with a Samaritan 
woman, and stayed for two days in that town. 
This was very different from the common spirit 
of hatred for all foreign people, such as we found 
in the books of Esther and of Jonah. 

The district of Galilee had no place in the Old 
Testament. Even so late as a hundred years 
before Christ, it was inhabited mostly by Gentile 
people— Canaanites, who still held the lands of 
their forefathers; Syrians, who had come in when 

248 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: SECOND YEAR 

Damascus was destroyed; Arabs from the eastern 
deserts; and Greek settlers, who had followed the 
armies of Alexander. This land the Jews con- 
quered in 104 B. C. and the people became Jews 
in their manners and customs and religion. Gal- 
ilee had on the east the Phoenician country of 
Tyre and Sidon, down to Mt. Carmel, and on the 
west the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, and it ex- 
tended on the south to the river Kishon which ran 
through the Great Plain. Here was Nazareth, 
overlooking the plain; Cana was a few miles north 
of Nazareth. The whole district was only about 
thirty miles from east to west, and forty miles 
from north to south. About twenty miles from 
Nazareth, on the northern shore of the Sea of 
Galilee, was the chief town of the province, Caper- 
naum. 

Returning now to this country in which He had 
been brought up, He settled in Capernaum, and in 
that place and in the near neighborhood He spent 
"the whole of the second year. 

The record of one sample day shows what a 
crowded year it was. It was a Sabbath, and He 
spent the morning, according to His custom, in 
the synagogue. There was a man in the congre- 
gation who had an evil spirit; he was what we call 



249 



THE GOSPELS 

a crazy man. Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, and 
the man was cured; his better self got the control 
of his will. After the service Jesus went to dine 
at the house of Peter and Andrew, taking James 
and John with him, and finding Peter's wife's 
mother sick in bed, having a fever, He laid His 
hand upon her, and immediately the fever left 
her. That evening at sunset, the street before the 
house was filled with people who had brought 
their sick that He might heal them, and He healed 
many. Thus passed that busy day, and many 
others like it. 

Thus Christ had power to heal the sick. Wher- 
ever He went, the blind and lame and mute and 
deaf, those who were palsied in their limbs and 
those who were diseased in mind, even the lepers, 
were brought to Him. This, however, was not 
His main interest. Concerned as He was for the 
sick in body, He was far more concerned for the 
sick in soul. He saw that the worst thing in the 
world is not pain, but sin. Thus, although His 
pity led Him to use His singular healing power, He 
often did so in private, and told those who were 
healed not to talk about it. He was unwilling to 
be thought of merely as a doer of wonders or to be 
followed by a crowd of curious persons. Sohie- 

250 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: SECOND YEAR 

times He was so pursued by such crowds that He 
kept away from towns, and went into the quiet 
country. 

Even when he healed the sick, He did so not as 
in the fairy stories by a touch of a magic wand, 
but by an appeal to the will and faith of those who 
needed healing. They must help Him or else He 
could do nothing. One time He went to Nazareth 
and preached in the synagogue whose services He 
had attended since His childhood. But the people 
who had known Him all those years could not 
believe that their old neighbor, whom they had 
employed to mend their chairs and tables, and by 
whose side they had done their work and lived 
their lives, was a Great Person. They could not 
think of Him as a prophet, and they did not dream 
that He was the Christ. They said, however, 
"Let us see if He can do here some of those won- 
ders which He is reported to have done in Caper- 
naum. Let us see if He can work a miracle." But 
-being thus asked to work a miracle to prove His 
greatness, in the face of the disbelief of the people, 
He could do no mighty work among them. Then 
they were angry, and thrust Him out of the syna- 
gogue, and out of the town. Even his own brothers 
did not believe in Him, especially when He began 

251 



THE GOSPELS 

to do and say things which were quite different 
from the common custom and teaching of the day. 
They tried to stop Him, saying, "He is beside 

Himself." 

Thus Jesus found Himself in the midst of those 
who did not understand Him. Some, indeed, 
began already to think that He might be the 
Christ, and that He might bring to pass that king- 
dom of God for which they prayed. But they de- 
sired a kingdom such as Judas Maccabeus had 
won from the Greeks, to be gained by a victorious 
army and to be ruled by princes sitting on thrones. 
They thought that Jesus might be able to bring in 
such a kingdom because He could do such mighty 

works. 

Then one time Jesus went up on one of the hills 
beside Capernaum and spent the whole night in 
prayer, and in the morning when a great crowd 
met Him as He came down, He chose twelve of 
them to be His nearest friends, and called them 
apostles; meaning that He intended to teach them 
and send them out to teach others. And then, ad- 
dressing the multitude, He told them His idea of 
the kingdom which Christ when He came would 
establish. He preached the sermon on the Mount. 

You have the commandments, He said, but 

252 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: SECOND YEAR 

you think you are keeping them well enough when 
you do not break them with your hands. The 
truth is that the commandments are truly obeyed 
only when they are obeyed in your hearts. Thus 
the words "Thou shalt not kill" are to be under- 
stood as forbidding every unbrotherly thought. 
And the words "Thou shalt not commit adul- 
tery" are to be understood not only as command- 
ing men not to steal their neighbors' wives, but as 
forbidding every kind of impurity, even in the 
secret heart. 

You have your religious customs, He said, alms- 
giving and prayer and fasting— but these are of 
no good in themselves. Their value depends on 
what they mean. If they are done to get the 
praise of men, they may get that, but nothing 
more. God praises only those whose alms and 
prayers and fasts are done for His own sake. God 
cares for the heart. You must have a better 
righteousness, He said, than the people whose 
goodness is only a church goodness, and consists 
in attending services and offering sacrifices and 
keeping the customs of religion. The true good- 
ness consists in loving our neighbors, even in loving 
our enemies, in serving those who are in need, and 
in living in the thought of the presence of God. 

253 



THE GOSPELS 

Another time, beside the Sea of Galilee, He 
preached a Sermon of Parables. He said that the 
kingdom of Heaven is the most precious thing in 
the world, like a priceless pearl; and that though 
the true idea of it is now held by a few humble 
people yet it shall grow like a mustard seed; and 
that this growth shall be as quiet a progress as the 
working of the yeast in the meal; and that, all 
along, many shall misunderstand it and refuse to 
accept it. See that man, He said, as He scatters 
the grain; some falls on the hard path, and the 
birds eat it; some falls among weeds and they 
choke it; some falls on the shallow soil and withers 
because it has no root; some falls on good ground, 
and brings forth a good harvest. It is like the 
preaching of the kingdom of God. 

As the year drew to a close, and the time of the 
Passover came again, Jesus heard that John the 
Baptist had been put to death. He had rebuked 
Herod for taking his brother's wife, and Herod 
had put him in prison, and at last, urged by his 
wife, had caused him to be beheaded. It showed 
what a true prophet might expect. Jesus took the 
twelve, and went across the Sea of Galilee to a 
quiet place, where they might rest and where He 
might have time to think. To this place there 

254 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: SECOND YEAR 

came a great crowd, whom He first taught and 
then fed with loaves and fishes. Among these 
men, seeing the mighty power of Jesus, a great 
cry arose calling Him to be their king. "Come," 
they cried, "and lead us against Herod and 
against Rome. Your life is in peril; Herod will 
kill you as he has killed John. Come, begin the 
kingdom of God here, with us." 

When He refused this demand, and the next 
day in the synagogue preached a long sermon in 
which He said a great deal about God and nothing 
about Caesar, and showed plainly that the King- 
dom of God for which He was working was a king- 
dom not of conquest nor of worldly power but of the 
truth, they were greviously disappointed. From 
that time, the number of His disciples decreased. 
A great multitude turned back and walked no 
more with Him. He feared for a moment that 
even the twelve would go away, but they were 
loyal in the midst of the great desertion. 
. At the same time, the religious teachers and 
leaders, especially those of Jerusalem, set them- 
selves in opposition to Him. 

Indeed, He had first set Himself in opposition 
to them. In addition to the old simple rule of 
doing no work on the Sabbath, they had made a 

255 



THE GOSPELS 

hundred rules about the keeping of the day, which 
made it a burden rather than a rest and joy. These 
rules He disregarded. Also, to their distinctions 
between things clean and things unclean, He paid 
no attention. For example, when they came in 
from the street they washed their hands, not to 
get them clean as we do, but to wash off bad luck. 
This He declined to do. As for food, He said that 
men are defiled not by eating any special kinds 
of meat, but by saying bad or unkind or untrue 
words. On account of such teaching, they held 
that He was a breaker of the laws of religion. 

Now there was a belief among the people that 
if once the law was perfectly kept all the promises 
of the Old Testament would be fulfilled; the Jews 
would immediately become a great and rich and 
prosperous nation. They reasoned in this way: 
they said, "We are the special people of God, and 
the special people of God ought to be blessed with 
all good things, but we are not blessed with all 
good things, something therefore must be the 
matter. What is it which withholds the blessing of 
God? It is our disobedience to the law." And by 
the law they meant not only what was written in 
the Bible, but all their added rules. Thus a 
breaker of the laws of religion, and especially one 

256 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: SECOND YEAR 

who was encouraging the people to break the laws, 
was a public enemy. The Pharisees, who had 
this belief about the law, accounted Jesus as a 
public enemy. They talked about killing Him. 

Thus it came to pass that as the Passover time 
approached, and people began to start out for 
Jerusalem, Christ took His apostles and went in 
quite a different direction. It was not only unsafe 
for Him to go to Jerusalem, but even in Galilee 
His life was in danger. With His followers fallen 
away, and His enemies daily increasing He left 
Galilee and sought safety for a time among the 
Gentiles. 



257 



THE MINISTRY OF CHRIST : THIRD YEAR 

Matthew 15 :2-28 :20, Mark 7 :23-16 :20, Luke 9 :18-24 :53, 
John 7-21. 

1. In the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon, Mark 

7:24-30. 

2. In the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi. 

(1) The Confession, Matthew 16:13-23. 

(2) The Transfiguration, Matthew 17:1-21. 

3. In the Decapolis, Mark 7:31-37, Matthew 15:29 

32. 

4. In Perea, Luke 9:51-18:34. 

(1) The sending of the seventy, 10. 

(2) The parables of the Good Samaritan (10), 

the Prodigal Son (15), the Rich Man and 
Lazarus (16). 

5. In Jerusalem. 

(1) At the Feast of Tabernacles, John 7, 8. 

(2) At the Feast of Dedication, John 9, 10. 

6. The raising of Lazarus, John 11. 

7. The Holy Week. 

(1) The entry into Jerusalem. 

(2) The days of teaching. 

(3) The Last Supper. 

(4) The prayer and arrest in the garden. 

(5) The trial before Caiphas and Pilate. 

(6) The crucifixion. 

(7) The resurrection. 

258 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: THIRD YEAR 

^TPHE third and last year of the ministry of Christ 
was spent, for the most part, outside of either 
Judea or Galilee. He was in the lands to the north, 
in the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon and in the 
neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi. He was in 
the lands to the east, in the Decapolis and in Perea. 
St. John, in his gospel, reports two visits to Jeru- 
salem. 

Leaving Galilee, Jesus went first toward Tyre 
and Sidon. His purpose was not only to escape 
for a time from His enemies, but to get opportunity 
for long and quiet talks with His disciples. He 
saw that the days of His own life were numbered; 
it was plain to Him that He must presently meet 
the fate of John the Baptist. He wished, there- 
fore, to prepare the twelve to carry on His work. 
Thus they walked over the high hills and through 
the long valleys. Stopping, however, one day, to 
rest in that strange land, He was recognized by a 
woman who was in great trouble. Either she had 
- seen Him before, or, more likely, there was some- 
thing uncommonly fine and noble in His appear- 
ance. He could not be hid. She begged Him, 
therefore, to heal her daughter. But He hesitated. 
The woman was a heathen. She believed in Baal 
and Astarte, the gods of the Canaanites; or in 

259 



THE GOSPELS 

Zeus and Ares and Athene, the gods of the Greeks. 
The ministry of Christ had thus far been only to 
people of the Bible religion. His plan was not to 
go about and preach the gospel to a great many 
people, speaking once or twice in a place, but 
rather to teach a few people thoroughly, thus 
giving the truth a strong root from which to grow. 
It was His prayer that the Old Testament people, 
being first persuaded, might then teach the world. 
Thus the woman's cry called Him to change His 
plan. He stopped to think — then He turned to 
her in compassion and healed her child. 

North of Galilee, at the source of the Jordan, 
was the city of Caesarea Philippi. It was named 
in part for Augustus Caesar, in whose honor it 
was built, and in part for Philip, a brother of 
Herod of Galilee, who built it. Situated in the 
midst of the mountains and at the beginning of 
the river, the place had been held sacred from the 
earliest times. The Canaanites had a shrine there. 
There the Israelite tribe of Dan had made a 
sanctuary. The Greeks had consecrated it to 
Pan, their god of nature. The Romans had erected 
there a statue to Augustus, their god of the state. 
As Christ and the twelve passed that way, He said 
to them, "Whom do men say that I am?" Arid 

260 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: THIRD YEAR 

when they answered that some said that He was 
Elijah or one of the old prophets come to life again, 
He said, "Whom say ye that I am?" Peter 
answered, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
Living God." Thus, in that place of many re- 
ligions, there was spoken aloud for the first time 
the truth on which the Christian religion is 
founded. "On this rock," Christ said, "I will 
build my church." On the rock of the loyalty of 
the men who believed in Him when other disciples 
had fallen away, and on the rock of the truth 
which they believed. He told them plainly that 
He was indeed the Christ, who had come to save 
the world. 

A few days after, taking three of the disciples, 
He climbed a neighboring hill and spent the night 
in prayer. They saw Him as He prayed. So 
exalted was His spirit, so conscious of the divine 
presence, so directly did He speak to God, that 
when they described it afterwards, they said, "He 
was transfigured. His face shone as the sun. 
Moses and Elijah stood beside Him, and God 
spoke from the sky." Then sleep, as a thick 
cloud, fell upon them. In the morning, He 
brought them down and resumed His ministry of 
mercy; but from that time He spoke again and 

261 



THE GOSPELS 

again of the tragedy which lay before Him. "I 
must go to Jerusalem/' He said, "and there be 
seized by priests and scribes, and be put to pain, 
and at last be killed." 

The Decapolis was a district of ten cities, east 
of the Jordan. It had been taken into possession 
by the Greeks in the days of Alexander, and 
though now under the rule of the Romans, it was 
still inhabited by Greeks. The buildings were 
Greek, the language was Greek, the religion was 
Greek. Near Gadara, one of the ten cities, Jesus 
had healed a man who had, he said, a whole legion 
of devils in him. Jesus had cast them out; and 
the man had published this wonder throughout 
all Decapolis. Coming now again into this 
country, they brought to Him a deaf-and-dumb 
man, and He healed him. And great multitudes 
came to Him — heathen people like the woman of 
the district of Tyre and Sidon — having with them 
the lame and the blind, and the dumb, and the 
maimed, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and 
He healed them. And they glorified the God of 
Israel. Thus He showed them the truth of the 
true religion not by arguing with them but by 
doing good to them. 

South of Decapolis was Perea. There He came 

262 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: THIRD YEAR 

again into a country of the Jews. From Tyre, a 
city of Phoenicians, from Caesarea a city of 
Romans, from Decapolis a land of Greeks, He re- 
turned to His own people. He entered there upon 
a mission about which we know little, except that 
He prepared for it by sending seventy disciples 
to make ready for Him. For a time, crowds fol- 
lowed Him as before. St. Luke has preserved for 
us a record of some of His Perean teachings. He 
spoke much in parables. To the parables of the 
kingdom, which He had given His disciples in 
Galilee, He added, in Perea, the parables of the 
brotherhood, teaching a love and service which 
took no account of either race or religion: the 
Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Rich Man 
and Lazarus. 

It was perhaps during this Perean residence that 
He made the two visits to Jerusalem which are 
described in the gospel of St. John. The feast of 
Tabernacles came about the time of our Thanks- 
giving Day, and commemorated both the journey 
of the Hebrews through the wilderness in the days 
of Moses, and the gratitude of the people year by 
year for the harvests of the land. The feast of the 
Dedication came about the time of our Christmas 
Day, and commemorated the restoration of the 

263 



THE GOSPELS 

temple by Judas Maccabeus. In the midst of the 
people assembled at these feasts, Jesus spoke con- 
cerning Himself. He said little in regard to His 
being the Christ. His words were now far wider 
in their meaning. He went beyond the idea of 
fulfilling their expectation of a Great Deliverer who 
should devote Himself mainly to the good of the 
Jews, and spoke of Himself as the Savior of all 
men. "I am the light of the world/ ' He said. 
He spoke sentences of deep mystery: "I and my 
Father are one." This the Jews understood to be 
a claim to a nature more than human, to a kinship 
with God. Twice, therefore, they took up stones 
to kill Him; but He still escaped alive. 

At last, the Passover came again. He must 
present Himself in Jerusalem for one final effort 
to change the minds and lives of the people. He 
must tell them again that the true kingdom of 
God consists not in the reign of any king but in 
obedience, of hand and heart, to God's command- 
ments. He must try again to bring them out of 
their narrowness of race and religion into a com- 
mon brotherhood of all men. He must endeavor 
again to show them that the life of the spirit con- 
sists not in the keeping of a thousand rules but in 
the freedom of the love of God. He knew well 

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The Parable of the Prodigal Son 



Batoni 



I 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: THIRD YEAR 

that this would set the church so bitterly against 
Him that His life would be the price which He 
must pay for His plain speech. For what He de- 
manded was the reformation of the church, and 
the church was unwilling to be reformed. But 
speak He must. 

Thus He came down along the road which ran 
through Perea; He crossed the Jordan near 
Jericho, and went up through the rocky hills 
toward Jerusalem. He spent a night at Bethany. 
In the morning, He went into the city, riding an 
ass, which in the old times was accounted more 
royal than the horse. Thus, for a moment, the 
hope arose again that He would offer Himself to 
all the discontented in Israel as their king against 
the Romans. At the sight, however, of Jerusalem, 
He wept over it, and foretold its certain destruc- 
tion, and it was plain that He had no plan to save 
the city. Thus, again, His followers were bitterly 
disappointed. 

- For several days He taught in the temple. He 
spoke His mind regarding the religion of the place, 
and delivered His message in the ears of the 
priests and the scribes. There were still so many 
people with Him that the rulers did not dare to 
take Him publicly. At last, one of His own dis- 



THE GOSPELS 

ciples, Judas Iscariot, offered for money to bring 
them to Him in a quiet place where He might be 
arrested without tumult. As the feast of the 
Passover came, He ate the Paschal Supper with 
the twelve. At that time He took bread and 
broke it, and poured wine into a cup, and these He 
gave to them saying "This is my body, this is my 
blood; do this in remembrance of me." 

After that, as He was praying in the garden of 
Gethsemane, Judas, who had gone from the 
supper to the priests, led a band of soldiers and 
servants who seized and bound Him and carried 
Him away. All the disciples fled. Thus He was 
brought before the council of the Jewish church 
and people, meeting in the night. There He 
declared plainly that He was the Christ, the Son of 
God. He was condemned to death, and brought 
before Pilate to be sentenced. Pilate found no 
fault in Him, but there was now a mob of people 
clamoring for His crucifixion, until Pilate was 
frightened. He scourged Jesus, hoping that that 
would be enough, but the sight of His blood only 
enraged them the more. Standing before them, 
having on His shoulders a scarlet robe and on His 
head a crown of thorns, in contempt of His claim 

266 



MINISTRY OF CHRIST: THIRD YEAR 

to be the true king of the Jews, they cried out, 
" Crucify him ! Crucify him !" 

So He was crucified. They led Him out of the 
city to a place of execution, nailed His hands and 
feet to a cross, and left Him there to die. The 
day was Friday, the time was nine o'clock, at 
three o'clock He died. Thus was ended, as it 
seemed, a life of failure. He had come upholding 
high ideals and trying to get them realized, teach- 
ing the truth of God, God Himself being with Him 
and in Him, and not only the people but the min- 
isters of the church had refused to heed Him. The 
church had put Him to death. 

But that was only the beginning. On Sunday 
a rumor spread among the disciples that He was 
alive. Some of them going out in the early morn- 
ing, found the grave empty. Some came back 
reporting that they had seen visions of angels 
declaring that He was risen from the dead. Pres- 
ently, Peter saw Him. That afternoon, two 
disciples going to a village near Jerusalem were 
joined by a mysterious person whom at last they 
recognized as Jesus; and when they knew Him, 
He vanished out of their sight. That evening the 
whole company of the apostles — except Judas, 
who had hanged himself, and Thomas, who was 

267 



THE GOSPELS 

absent,— saw Him face to face. He had indeed 
arisen, and was alive, as He said, forevermore. 
A week later, Thomas also saw Him and fell at 
His feet crying, < < My Lord and my God ! ' ' These 
appearances continued for a month and more. 
They made it plain to the disciples that their 
Master was alive. Returning thus to life after His 
death upon the cross, they were made certain that 
He was indeed the Christ, as He had said. And 
gradually, more and more, as He appeared and 
disappeared with words of blessing, and at last 
ascended into Heaven, they began to perceive 
that He was more than the Christ, more than the 
Great Deliverer for whom the nation prayed, more 
than man. They began to see that in Him God 
Himself had visited them, and taught them, and 
lived amongst them. They began to see that the 
life and death of Jesus had been a revelation of the 
love and will of God. 



268 




The Descent from the Cross 



After Rubens 



THE NEW TESTAMENT 
THE ACTS 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

Acts 1-8, 10-12. 

1. The preparation for the Christian mission. 

(1) The days of waiting, 1. 

(2) The Day of Pentecost, 2. 

2. The Christians and the rulers of the city. 

(1) First summons; after healing a lame man 

3,4. 

(2) Second summons; after punishing liars, 5. 

3. The Christians and the rulers of the synagogue. 

(1) The appointment of Stephen 6:1-8. 

(2) The speech of Stephen 6:9-7:53. 

(3) The stoning of Stephen, 7:54-60. 

4. The mission of Philip. 

(1) To the Samaritans 8:1-25. 

(2) To the Ethiopian, 8:26-40. 

5. The mission of Peter. 

(1) To Lydda and Joppa, 9:31-43. 

(2) To Caesarea: Cornelius the centurian 

10, 11. 

The baptism of Gentiles. 

^pHE book of the^cts of the Apostles is an ac- 
count, for the most part, of the ministry of two 
men, St. Peter and St. Paul. It describes the be- 
ginning of the Christian Church in Jerusalem, and 
its extension outside of Jerusalem, as far as Rome. 

271 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

The resurrection of Christ had filled the hearts 
of the disciples with such faith in Him that they 
had high hopes of convincing all their brethren. 
When the Feast of Penticost came, a commemor- 
ation of the giving of the law on Sinai, and a 
thanksgiving for the wheat harvest, they were 
made so aware of the presence and blessing of God 
that the room in which they prayed seemed filled 
with the sound of a mighty wind and tongues of 
fire appeared upon their heads. Down they came, 
then, into the streets and began to speak. At 
first, their excitement and enthusiasm and joy was 
such that they spoke in sounds rather than in 
words, yet in such a manner that men of every 
language understood that something very extra- 
ordinary had happened to them. Then Peter 
spoke in the common language which they all 
knew, and declared that Jesus whom they had 
crucified was the Christ who should save the 
nation and the world. 

The rulers, finding that this preaching at- 
tracted a great crowd, and fearful of a public dis- 
turbance, put the apostles into prison; and when 
they were let out and still continued to preach 
their gospel, they imprisoned them again, hes- 
itating to use harsher means, on account of the 

272 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

feeling of the people. No imprisonment, however, 
and not even scourging stopped the men, and 
daily the number of those who believed their word 
increased. 

In consequence of this preaching, there arose 
among the Jews in Jerusalem a company of people 
who believed that Jesus was the Christ, that He 
had risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven, 
and that he would come again to judge all men 
according to the ideal of right living which He 
taught. They were still members of the church 
and had no intention of separating from it. They 
attended the services of the temple and the syna- 
gogue; but in addition, they had meetings of their 
own, eating together in great friendship, breaking 
bread as Christ had commanded. 

At last, a good man named Stephen, who had 
been appointed, with others, to care for the poor 
widows of the company that they might not go 
hungry, entered into a controversy with his 
brethren who had not accepted Jesus as the Christ. 
They said that Jesus, whom he upheld, had 
threatened to destroy the temple and to change 
the laws of Moses. And when he answered them, 
maintaining that they were blind to the light of 
God, as their fathers had been so many times 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

before them, they cast him out of the synagogue 
and stoned him till he died. Thus departed 
Stephen, the first martyr, declaring that he saw 
Jesus glorified in Heaven, at the right hand of God. 

The murder of Stephen was followed by a gen- 
eral persecution of the Christians. They were 
forced out of the synagogues. They were com- 
pelled at last to separate themselves from the 
ancient church. The Christian Church began as 
an independent religious society on the day when 
the congregation stoned Stephen. 

The Christians who were thus persecuted after 
the stoning of Stephen fled in all directions; except 
the apostles. Wherever they went they carried 
the gospel with them. They told men everywhere 
that Christ had come, that God had spoken to 
men, and that the kingdom of God was at hand. 
" Repent," they said, "and believe, and be bap- 
tized. Then may you enter into the heavenly 
kingdom." 

Philip, who had been a companion of Stephen, 
went to Samaria and preached Christ to the 
Samaritans. They were at that time under the 
influence of a teacher named Simon Magus, who 
was preaching a religion in which he himself held 
a high place, being, as he said, the "great power of 

274 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

God." But the Samaritans, and for a time even 
Simon, believed Philip. He baptized them, and 
Peter and John came from Jerusalem and laid 
their hands upon them, and the Holy Spirit 
brought great joy into their hearts. 

Presently, Philip met on the road a man from 
Ethiopia, a treasurer of the queen"of that country. 
He had been to Jerusalem to worship, being of 
the Jews' religion, and as he rode along he read 
the Bible, and considered the strange things which 
he had heard during his visit. Meeting Philip 
going the same way, he asked him to ride with 
him, and questioned Philip concerning Jesus the 
Christ. What Philip said so impressed the Ethio- 
pian that he asked to be baptized, and at the next 
pool of water Philip baptized him. 

Thence went Philip to Caesarea by the sea, and 
there made his home. In so doing, he left Judaism 
behind him, for Caesarea by the sea was a Roman 
city, the capital of the Roman governor. Nothing 
more is heard of Philip for several years, but we 
get a glimpse of his ministry among the Gentiles 
of that city in the fact that a Roman soldier, 
named Cornelius, dreamed at night of Philip's 
friend, the apostle Peter. Cornelius was a good 
man, who continually served God and his neigh- 

275 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

bors, praying and giving alms; but he was a 
Gentile. Meanwhile, Peter was following Philip 
in his mission to Caesarea, as he had followed him 
in his mission to Samaria. He had visited Lydda, 
where he found a few Christians, and had come to 
Joppa. 

The town was by the sea, near the scene of the 
old story of Perseus and Andromeda. There 
Peter found lodgings with a tanner, whose house 
was by the sea-side. The town was as Jewish in 
its population and spirit as Caesarea was Gentile, 
but it looked out over the Mediterranean toward 
the great new world of the west. The roof of the 
house was flat, like all the roofs of that country, 
and Peter went upon the roof to get the cool 
breeze from the water, and to wait for dinner. He 
was thinking of the Jewish world behind him and 
about him, with its prejudices, in which he himself 
shared, and its unwillingness to admit Gentiles 
into its friendship. And he was thinking of the 
vast Gentile world before him, needing the truth 
which he had to teach and the help which he had 
to bring. Thus meditating he fell asleep, and 
dreamed. And in his dream a great sheet was let 
down from the sky, and in it were all sorts of 
animals, some good for food and some not good 

276 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

for food, according to the Jewish law. And a 
voice said, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat"; to which 
he replied "Not so, Lord, I have never eaten that 
which the law calls unclean." Then the voice 
said, "What God has cleaned, that call not thou 
unclean." Then he awoke, and as he thought 
upon his dream he saw that it meant that the old 
distinctions and separations were to be done away. 
Men were to eat whatever agreed with them, no 
matter what the old law forbade, and they were to 
sit at all men's tables, whether Jew or Gentile. 
Then came a knock at the door, and there were 
messengers from Cornelius. "Come," said Cor- 
nelius, "and tell me what I ought to do." So 
Peter went. Coming to the Gentile's house, he 
went in, and spoke to Cornelius and his friends as 
brothers, not in the Jews' manner, and when they 
desired him he baptized them all. 

Thus the next great step was taken. People 
were admitted to membership in the Christian 
company without the requirement that they 
should first be Jews. It was a matter of grave im- 
portance because it answered the question which 
all the Christians were discussing. Are we a 
Jewish society, keeping all the old rules and only 
adding new ones? Or are we a Christian church, 

277 



THE ACTS OF ST. PETER 

apart from the old Judaism, taking what we like 
and leaving what we like not, and living our ^>wn 
life, and thus appealing not to the Jews only but 
also to the Gentiles? This matter Peter had de- 
cided for himself when he met Cornelius and his 
friends and baptized them, taking them in straight 
from the ranks of the Gentiles. 



278 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

Acts 9, 13-28. 

L The conversion of Saul, 9:22, 26. 

2. Ten years in Syria and Cilicia, 35-45 A. D. Gala- 

tians 1:18, 2:1. 

3. The three missionary journeys, 45-55. 

(1) The mission to Galatia. 

a. Cyprus, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra 13, 

14. 

b. The conference at Jerusalem, 15. 

(2) The mission to Macedonia and Achaia. 

a. To Macedonia. 

Philippi, Thessalonica 16-17:14. 

b. To Achaia. 

Athens, 17:15-34. 
Corinth, 18. 

(3) The mission to Asia. 

a. Ephesus, 19. 

b. The return to Jerusalem 20-21 :16. 
4. The arrest and imprisonment of Paul, 55-60. 

(1) Arrested in Jerusalem 21:17-23:16. 

(2) Imprisoned in Caesarea 23:11-26:32. 

(3) Shipwrecked, 27-28:15. 

(4) Imprisoned in Rome, 28:16-31. 

jypANWHILE, an event had taken place which 
was to result in making this great matter 
plain and final. 

279 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

In the persecutions which followed the stoning 
of Stephen, the leader of the attack of the Jews 
upon the Christians was a young man named Saul. 
Born in the Roman city of Tarsus, in Asia Minor, 
where he had seen the glory and the learning of the 
Gentile world; educated in Jerusalem under the 
best teacher of the time, Gamaliel; he was a person 
of very positive convictions, on which he was ac- 
customed to act with all his might. He had con- 
tended the more fiercely against the Christians 
because he was contending bitterly with himself. 
He had come to see that the old law did not help 
him, and that, even though he obeyed it, it was not 
enough for a good life. He felt in his heart an in- 
clination towards sin, keeping him back from his 
high ideals. Against this inclination, the old re- 
ligion gave him no sufficient strength. Thus his 
flesh and his spirit, his will and his conscience, were 
at war. 

Getting permission from the priests at Jeru- 
salem to seek out the Christian heretics and separ- 
atists even in Damascus, he set out thither after 
the excitement of the persecution in Judea. Thus 
he rode for days silently across the desert, thinking. 
At last, one day at noon, as he and his companions 
drew near to Damascus, suddenly there was a 

280 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

flash like lightning from the sky, and Saul fell 
from his horse, stunned and blinded. When they 
led him into the city, he met the chief of the 
Christians there, named Ananias, whom he had 
meant to put to death, and said, "I have seen 
Jesus Christ ! I have seen him in the sky in shining 
light !" And he was baptized. The~ "persecutor 
had become a Christian. 

Thereafter Saul, who presently changed his 
name to Paul, devoted himself to the service of 
Christ. He went away for a time into Arabia, to 
consider his new life. Then he went into Syria and 
Cilicia : into Syria, north of the Holy Land, whose 
chief city was Antioch; and into Cilicia, west of 
Syria, whose chief city was St. Paul's native town 
of Tarsus. There he stayed perhaps ten years, 
studying and preaching, making ready for his 
great work. 

If we take the year 30 as the time of the cruci- 
fixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the 
year 60 as the time of the martyrdom of St. Paul 
the book of the Acts covers a period of thirty 
years. Saul was converted about the year 35. 
Barnabas went to Tarsus and brought him back 
to Antioch about the year 45. The date is deter- 
mined by the death of Herod in 44. 

281 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

Then St. Paul started, with Barnabas, on the 
first of his three missionary journeys. 
\ Leaving Antioch, with the blessings and prayers 
of the Christians there, they sailed to Cyprus, and 
visited the two principal towns of that island. 
Their plan was to begin in the synagogue and 
preach the gospel to the Jews. This they did in 
Cyprus, where they saved the governor of the 
island from the deceits of a sorcerer named 
Elymas. 

Then they sailed to Asia Minor. Between Asia 
and Europe, like a wide bridge, having the Med- 
iterranean Sea on the south and the Black and Cas- 
pian Seas on the north, reaches this middle land of 
Asia Minor. The first missionary journey was in 
the eastern part of this country. 

Passing through Perga, they came to another 
Antioch, a great city of the province of Galatia. 
There Paul preached first to the Jews, then to the 
Gentiles, and made so many of them Christians 
that the conservative Jews, seeing the success of 
this which to them seemed heresy, stirred up the 
city against them, and put them out. They had 
the same experience at Iconium, where they were 

stoned. 
At Lystra, the next town, the simple people 

282 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

thought at first that Paul and Barnabas were two 
of their Greek gods come to earth, calling Bar- 
nabas Jupiter and Paul Mercury, because he was 
the chief speaker. But men who followed from An- 
tioch and Iconium changed their minds and they 
assaulted the Christian preachers with stones till 
they thought they had killed Paul. The apostles 
escaped, however, with their lives, and went to 
Derbe. Thence they retraced their steps, encour- 
aging those whom they had persuaded to become 
Christians, and appointing the older among them 
to be their ministers, and so returned to Antioch 
in Syria, whence they had set out. 

The immediate effect of this journey was to 
raise again the question as to the relation between 
the Christians and the Jews. Paul and Barnabas 
had made no difference between Jews and Gentiles, 
and had admitted people by baptism into the 
Christian church without paying any heed to the 
ancient initiation by which people were admitted 
to the Jewish church. This ancient rite was 
called circumcision. It was plainly commanded 
in the Bible. One party of Christians said there- 
fore, " Except men be circumcised and keep the 
law of Moses, they cannot be saved/ ' Another 
party of Christians said, "New times and needs 

283 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

require new ways. God has given the Holy Spirit 
to uncircumcised men whom Peter and Paul have 
baptized. Former things have passed away." 
So they met at Jerusalem to consider the matter. 
"Is the Bible in every particular binding on our con- 
sciences? Must we still do exactly as men did a 
thousand years ago? Shall we admit Jews only, 
into the Christian church, or shall we frankly set 
aside the old law and freely admit Gentiles? ' 
This they debated, and the accounts which Paul 
and Barnabas gave of their mission to Galatia de- 
termined the discussion. They decided to follow 
their own judgment. "It seems good," they said, 
"to the Holy Ghost and to us to make men Chris- 
tians without putting upon them the burden of 
the Jewish law." 

Then Paul, this time taking Silas with him, 
started on his second missionary journey. 

His purpose now was to preach in the western 
part of Asia Minor, as he had previously preached 
in the eastern part. But this was prevented. For 
reasons which we are not told, he was unable to go 
on one side to Ephesus, or on the other side to 
Bithynia. On he went, therefore, till he came to 
the extreme town on the border of Asia Minor 
towards Europe, the city of Troas. In this 

284 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

neighborhood had stood that famous town of 
Troy, to which Paris brought stolen Helen in the 
old story, and over whose possession the Greeks 
and Trojans fought so long. There in a dream 
Paul saw an European, a man of Macedonia, say- 
ing, "Come over into Macedonia and help us." 
The next day, he set sail on the Aegean Sea and 
crossed to Europe. 

He found himself in the province of Macedonia, 
from which Alexander had set forth to conquer 
the world. Thus he approached Philippi. That 
was the place where the Roman Empire had its 
beginning, for there, after the murder of Julius 
Caesar, Augustus defeated Brutus and Cassius 
and became the ruler of the world. There began 
the Christian church in Europe. The preaching of 
Paul at Philippi was interrupted by a disturbance 
made by the owners of a fortune-telling slave girl, 
whom Paul healed of an evil spirit. They accused 
the Christian preachers of teaching new and 
strange customs, and they were beaten and put 
in prison. The next day, however, the magis- 
trates, learning that Paul was a Roman citizen, 
released them with apologies. 

Thence they went to Thessalonica. There the 

285 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

Jews who did not accept their preaching raised a 
tumult, as in other places, and brought a mob 
about the doors of the house where they were 
staying, and tried to lay hold upon them. They 
did not succeed, but it seemed wise for Paul and 
Silas to depart out of their city. 

Thus they fared, then, in the two principal 
places of Macedonia, Philippi and Thessalonica. 
Moving on thence into the province of Achaia, 
/the land which we call Greece, they found again 
/ two cities, Athens and Corinth. 
\J Athens was the great city of learning, of art, of 
philosophy. There was a famous university there. 
On Mars' Hill, which overlooked the city, Paul 
preached to the Epicureans and the Stoics. These 
men were trying to get the most happiness out of 
life, but they differed as to the way to do it. The 
Epicureans said, " Enjoy everything, and you will 
be happy"; the Stoics said, " Desire nothing, and 
you will be happy." Neither of them took the 
service of God and of their neighbors into much 
account. To them Paul preached the universal 
God, in whose obedience true joy is to be found, 
and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. But they 
showed little interest. 

286 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

Corinth was the great city of business and 
wealth. Situated at the isthmus which connected 
the two parts of the peninsula of Greece, it was 
mistress of the trade of that part of the world. 
Paul spent nearly two years in Corinth. The Jews 
again opposed him, and put him on trial before 
Gallio, the Roman governor, but Gallio paid no 
heed to their charges. After that, Paul addressed 
himself to the Gentiles. Then, making a brief 
visit to Ephesus, and sailing thence to Caesarea, 
he made his way to Jerusalem and to Antioch, and 
so ended his second missionary journey. 

The third journey was made to those eastern 
parts of Asia Minor which in the second journey 
Paul had passed by. He took up his residence in 
Ephesus. 

Ephesus was a city of religion, as Athens was a 
city of philosophy and Corinth of business, but 
the religion was the worship of Diana, in whose 
honor there was a splendid temple. Paul was so 
successful in his preaching to the Ephesians that 
they not only made a great bonfire of their books 
of magic, but the business of selling silver shrines, 
little copies of the great shrine of Diana, decreased 
seriously. Thereupon the shrine-makers raised a 

287 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

mob against the Christians, shouting for two hours 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" 

From Ephesus Paul revisited Macedonia and 
Greece. He returned to Asia Minor, stopping at 
Troas, and meeting a company of people from 
Ephesus on the sea-shore by Miletus. There he 
told them that they should see his face no more, 
and they wept, and kissed him. He landed at 
Tyre, went down along the coast road through 
Caesarea, and so came to Jerusalem. 

At Jerusalem, his old enemies, the orthodox 
Jews, seized him in the temple, crying out upon 
him as the great breaker of the law and the foe 
of the church, and almost tearing him in pieces. 
The Roman governor rescued him out of their 
hands, but hearing that more than forty men had 
bound themselves under an oath that they would 
neither eat nor drink till they had killed the heretic 
he sent Paul by night, under guard of a company of 
soldiers, to Caesarea. There he lay two years in 
prison till, on his appeal of his case to Caesar, he 
was sent to Rome. He was shipwrecked on the 
way, but found refuge on the island of Malta, and 
at last arrived at the capital of the world. 

There the Acts leaves him, in charge of Roman 

288 




smt' 



St. Paul at Ephesus 



Le Sueur 



THE ACTS OF ST. PAUL 

officers, but having the liberty of his own hired 
house, awaiting trial, and preaching the gospel. 
It was remembered among the Christians that the 
trial went against him, and that he was condemned 
as a disturber of the peace. Outside the city he 
was put to death, being beheaded. 



289 



THE NEW TESTAMENT 
THE EPISTLES 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL, DURING THE 
MISSIONARY JOURNEYS 

1. To the Galatians. Christianity and Judaism. 

(1) Paul's divine authority, 1, 2. 

(2) The old religion and the new, 3, 4. 

(3) The liberty of faith, 5, 6. 

2. To the Thessalonians, I. The Second Coming of 

Christ. 
The dead shall share with the living in the joy 
of the Second Coming. 

3. To the Thessalonians, II. The Second Coming of 

Christ. 
The time is distant; meanwhile do your daily 
work. 

4. To the Corinthians, I. Admonitions and Answers 

(1) Admonitions. 

a. As to party divisions, 1-4. 

6. As to marrying one's stepmother, 5. 

c. As to going to law, 6. 

(2) Answers. 

a. Concerning marriage, 7. 

6. Concerning food offered to idols, 8. 

c. Concerning the Lord's Supper, 10, 11. 

d. Concerning the tongues, 12, 14. 

e. Concerning charity, 13. 

f. Concerning the resurrection, 15. 

g. Concerning the collection for the poor. 

16. 

5. To the Corinthians, II. Two Letters. 

293 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 

(1) The letter which made the Corinthians 

repent, 10-13. 

(2) The letter after they repented, 1-9. 
5. To the Romans. Christianity and Judaism. 

(1) Gentiles and Jews alike need salvation, 1-3. 

(2) Salvation not by law, but by faith and 

grace, 4, 5. 

(3) Freedom from law does not permit Chris- 

tians to sin, 6-8. 

(4) Failure of law does not mean that Jews 

are finally rejected, 9-11. 

(5) The life of faith, 12-16. 

/ T V EE word " epistle' ' is an old-fashioned name 
for a letter, as the word " prophecy' ' is an 
old-fashioned name for a sermon. 

One difference between the prophecies and the 
epistles is that the prophecies are concerned with 
nations, while the epistles are concerned with 
churches. The prophets are interested, like 
modern editors of newspapers, in the affairs of 
the world, in the progress of peoples, in the for- 
tunes of wars. The apostles are interested, like 
modern preachers of sermons, in the condition of 
the congregation, in the affairs of the parish, in 
the local good and evil. This is largely because the 
people to whom the epistles are addressed had no 
place among the nations, and no part in politics, 
being under the dominion of Rome. 

294 



THE MISSIONARY JOURNEYS 

Another difference is that the epistles instead of 
looking, like the prophecies, for some future and 
unknown deliverer, declare that the deliverer has 
come. 

Otherwise, the epistles are very much like the 
prophecies. The prophecies are sermons which 
were first spoken to the people and then written 
out; the epistles are sermons which were first 
written out and then sent to be read to the people. 

Of the twenty-one letters in the New Testament, 
fourteen bear the name of St. Paul and are con- 
veniently called the Pauline Epistles. The other 
seven are by different writers and are called the 
Catholic Epistles. The word "catholic," in this 
sense, means general; i. e. most of these letters 
are addressed to people in general, not to any per- 
son or church in particular. 

The Pauline Epistles are arranged in the Bible 
in the order of their size, beginning with long 
letters such as Romans and Corinthians and end- 
ing with the little note to Philemon. After Phil- 
emon, indeed, comes Hebrews, but this is because 
of a doubt whether it should be included among 
the letters of St. Paul, or not. The epistles are 
easier to understand when they are arranged not 
in order of size but in order of time. This arrange- 

295 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 

ment makes two groups: first, the epistles which 
were written during St. Paul's missionary journeys; 
and second, the epistles which were written during 
his imprisonment in Rome. 

The letters of the first group were written be- 
tween the years 45 and 55. They begin with 
Galatians, and include the double epistles to the 
Thessalonians and to the Corinthians, and end 
with Romans. 

It is uncertain whether the earliest epistle of 
St. Paul was written to the Galatians or to the 
Thessalonians. But the Galatians were the people 
to whom he preached in the first of his three mis- 
sionary journeys, and the matter concerning which 
he wrote to them is the question which that mis- 
sion raised. We may conveniently begin, then, 
with Galatians. 

The Galatian churches were in Antioch, Icon- 
ium, Derbe, and Lystra. Many of the converts 
made in these places were Gentiles. The accept- 
ance of these people by baptism without requiring 
them to be circumcised had led to that conference 
in Jerusalem at which the matter was decided. It 
was there settled that the Christian church was 
different from the Jewish church, and was not 
under obligation to keep the Jewish laws. 

296 



THE MISSIONARY JOURNEYS 

The matter was decided, but all the Christians 
in Jerusalem were not satisfied. They had all been 
Jews, brought up in the Jewish church and de- 
voutly attached to it, and some of them were 
not ready for so serious a step. They could not 
believe that the old laws did not bind men still. 
Even Peter, who had seen the vision of the great 
sheet, was impressed by their arguments, and 
though he had dined with Gentiles at Antioch, 
thus showing that he considered them as good as 
Jews, when some of these conservative brethren 
came he changed his mind. Peter and Paul had 
a sharp debate about it. 

Some of these conservative persons had gone 
to Galatia and disturbed the converts of St. Paul. 
"It is all a mistake," they said. " Except ye be 
circumcised and keep the law of Moses, ye cannot 
be saved." As for Paul, "He is not an apostle," 
they said, "He never knew the Lord Jesus. You 
must not depend on what he says." 

Under these circumstances, St. Paul wrote the 
Epistle to the Galatians. You see how he begins 
by saying that he is an apostle indeed; and by 
reproving the Galatians for listening to these dis- 
turbing teachers. Then he compares Christianity 
with Judaism, the gospel with the law. The law, 

297 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 

he says, was meant to prepare men for the gospel. 
To go back to it is like going back to the primary 
school. It is to exchange liberty for bondage. 
i The letters to the Thessalonians and to the 
Corinthians recall the mission of St. Paul first to 
Macedonia, and then to Greece, in the second of 
his journeys. They were written on account of 
reports which came to St. Paul from these churches 
and in answer to questions which they asked, 
i Paul having left Thessalonica in consequence 
of a mob which assaulted the house where he was 
staying, was anxious to know how the Christians 
there were enduring that persecution. Were they 
still true to him, and to the gospel which he 
taught, or had they fallen away? Then when 
Timothy came from Thessalonica and reported 
that all was well, bringing good tidings of their 
faith and charity, and saying that they greatly 
desired to see Paul again, even as he desired to see 
them, he wrote this first letter. He recalled his 
visit to them, and spoke of the friendship in Christ 
then happily begun, and told them how glad he 
was to learn of their endurance in the gospel. He 
added certain warnings regarding sins to which 
they were particularly tempted in their town. 
Finally, he com f o~ted those who were in mourning 

298 



THE MISSIONARY JOURNEYS 

among them, assuring them that when Christ 
came again, the dead should rise to meet Him with 
the living. 

The expectation of the coming of Christ, how- 
ever, took so strong a hold on the minds of the 
Christians in Thessalonica that some of them 
stopped work. They gave up their business. 
They said, "If the world is so near its end, and 
Christ may come next week, why interest our- 
selves in the affairs of this life?" Paul therefore 
wrote again to tell them that the best preparation 
for that Second Coming was the doing of their 
daily duty. "We do not know," he said, "When 
Christ will come. Many things must happen first. 
Be patient; be good and faithful. Attend dili- 
gently to your own business." 

The letters to the Corinthians, like those to the 
Thessalonians, were written on account of reports 
and questions. St. Paul was told that the Corinth- 
ian Christians were divided among themselves, 
some saying that they were followers of Paul, 
others that they were followers of Peter. He was 
told also that they were going to law one with 
another, bringing to the Roman courts the differ- 
ences which they ought to settle in brotherly love. 
Another report gave an account of a man who had 

299 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 

married his stepmother, and who was nevertheless 
permitted to continue in the company of the 
Christians. The first Epistle to the Corinthians 
begins with these unpleasant matters. 

Then the apostle answers various questions. It 
is not well, he says, for Christians to marry unbe- 
lievers. It is not well to eat food which has been 
offered to idols; of course, idols are nothing; and 
one kind of food is as good as another, so far as 
religion is concerned, but we must not needlessly 
give offence. 

He deals with the two kinds of Christian ser- 
vices; the service of the Holy Communion and 
the service of the Holy Spirit. As for the service 
of the Holy Communion, which consists in par- 
taking of the Lord's Supper, they are to enter into 
it with reverence; not lightly, as if it were an 
ordinary meal, but remembering the Lord Jesus. 
As for the service of the Holy Spirit, which con- 
sists in speaking with tongues, they are to know 
that better than all speech with tongues is the 
plain word which everybody can understand. The 
sound of the tongues expresses their own great 
joy, but the greatest thing in the world is charity, 
whereby we do good to others. 

The epistle closes with a chapter on the resur- 

300 



THE MISSIONARY JOURNEYS 

rection of the body. We must die, and be buried, 
and be raised again from the dead; not in the 
natural body which we wear and use in this 
present life but in the spiritual body which shall 
be fitted for the uses of the life to come. 

This first epistle was followed by a second, per- 
haps a third also. The fact that the letter as 
we have it begins by expressing gratitude for the 
repentance of the Corinthians after their bad con- 
duct, and then continues in sharp rebuke for bad 
conduct from which they have not departed and 
for which they have not repented, suggests that 
there are two letters here, of which the second 
comes first. 

In that case, St. Paul first wrote what is con- 
tained in chapters 10-13. He spoke sharply to 
the Corinthians for their disregard of his counsel, 
and their disrespect for him personally, and 
threatened to say worse things to them face to 
face. Then they came to a better mind, and he 
wrote the chapters 1-9. He made them sorry, he 
says, but he did it with tears, on account of his 
great love for them. He speaks of his labors for 
their sake in the gospel. Finally, he asks them to 
contribute to the collection which he is making for 
the poor Christians of Jerusalem. 

301 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 

The Epistle to the Romans was written at the 
close of the third missionary journey. St. Paul 
had come to Corinth in the course of his last 
visits to his churches before setting out for Jeru- 
salem. It had long been his purpose to visit Rome, 
and to go on farther even into Spain, but the 
future was uncertain. In the meantime, he writes 
what, if he were present, he would preach. 

The subject is the relation between Judaism 
and Christianity, which he had considered in the 
letter to the Galatians. But the situation is dif- 
ferent. The Christians in Galatia had been 
tempted to over-value Judaism, and thus to 
return to the old law. The Christians in Rome 
were tempted to under-value Judaism, and to 
disregard all law in the new freedom of the gospel. 

St. Paul begins by showing the failure of both 
Gentile and Jewish religions. The Gentile world 
is bad, and the Jewish world has fallen far below 
its ideals. Christianity comes bringing men help. 
This help consists in the strength of God which 
men may have by uniting themselves with Him in 
Jesus Christ. The strength of God is called grace, 
and the act by which we enter into union with 
Christ is called faith. We are thus saved, not by 



302 



THE MISSIONARY JOURNEYS 

our own efforts, not by works, but by faith and 
grace. 

At the same time, St. Paul guards the Roman 
Christians against two errors. They are not to 
think that because salvation is of God, not of 
themselves, they are therefore any more free to 
sin. And they are not to think that because the 
gospel has now taken the place of the law, the 
Jews are therefore cast away forever. 



303 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL, DURING THE 
ROMAN IMPRISONMENT 

1. To the Colossians. Against a False Philosophy. 

The worship of angels instead of Christ. 

The keeping of fasts and days instead of liberty 

2. To Philemon. Concerning a Runaway Slave. 

3. To the Ephesians. A Circular Letter. 

God has called us to great blessing. We must 
live worthy of our calling. 

4. To the Philistines. Thanks for gifts. 

The Pastoral Epistles. 
I and II Timothy, and Titus. Counsels to Ministers. 

To the Hebrews. Encouragement under Perse- 
cution. 

1. Consider the glory of our religion. 

(1) Jesus is higher than the angels, 1, 2. 

(2) Exalted above Moses, 3, 4. 

(3) Exalted above Aaron, 5-7. 

The order of Melchizedek. 

(4) Our divine high priest, 8-10. 

2. Consider the example of the heroes of the faith, 

11-13. 

HpHE prison of St. Paul in Rome was his own 

house. There, at least, he spent two years 

while he was awaiting his trial. A soldier, indeed, 

guarded him night and day, to whose arm Paul 

304 



THE ROMAN IMPRISONMENT 

was chained, but he had liberty to see his friends. 
Day by day, he preached the gospel, now to one 
soldier, now to another, until the news of the 
coming of God among us in Jesus Christ became 
known to many. This is of interest to us because 
presently it was by Roman soldiers that the gospel 
was first preached in Britain. 

^ One of the friends and disciples who came to 
visit Paul was a man named Epaphras. He came 
from Colosse, a city east of Ephesus. He had 
learned the Christian religion from Paul, probably 
during the apostle's mission in that neighborhood, 
and had taught it to the Colossians. Paul was 
troubled to hear from Epaphras that the Colos- 
sians had fallen into various errors. It was the 
belief of some people at that time that the world, 
with aH that is in it, including the body of man, is 
wholly bad; and that God, who is wholly good, 
is very far away. This belief, which afterwards,' 
under the name of Canosticism, attracted many 
Christians and led them into error, had two 
results. Men said, in the first place, that if God 
is so far away He must govern the world by means 
of angels, and so they thought a great deal about 
the angels, instead of thinking of Christ, in whom 
God and man are truly united. And they said, in 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 

the second place, that if our bodies are so evil we 
must make them as uncomfortable as possible, 
we must beat and starve them. Thus they re- 
turned to the old rules about the relation between 
food and religion, instead of taking the blessings 
of God with joy and thanksgiving. 

The letter which Paul wrote to the Colossians 
about these matters was carried to them by a man 
from their part of the country named Tychicus. 
With him went a runaway slave, named Onesimus. 
Onesimus had run away from Colosse, from the 
home of his master, Philemon. He had tried to 
hide himself in Rome. There he had become ac- 
quainted with St. Paul, who had brought him out 
of the worse slavery of sin. Onesimus had become 
a Christian. Philemon was a Christian already. 
Paul told Onesimus that it was his duty to go 
back. The time was indeed to come when Chris- 
tianity would make slavery impossible, but such 
great changes come very slowly. Meanwhile, the 
duty of Christian slaves was to be as good slaves 
as they knew how. And Christian masters must 
be brotherly masters. Onesimus, accordingly, 
went back, carrying a letter from Paul to Phile- 
mon. "Take back Onesimus !" he said, "not now 
as a servant, but as a brother beloved. ,, 

306 



THE ROMAN IMPRISONMENT 

A third letter, written about the same time and 
sent to the same region of country, is that which 
is addressed to the Ephesians. It seems to have 
been intended not only for the Ephesians but for 
other churches also, to be passed about and read 
to the Christians of several places— Ephesus and 
Laodicea and Colosse. It does not refer to St. 
Paul's long stay in Ephesus, nor does it carry 
greetings to any Ephesian friends. Indeed, some 
think that the real letter to the Ephesians is the 
last chapter of the Romans. This chapter is a 
commendation of a Christian woman named 
Phebe to the friendship of a number of people 
whose names are mentioned. The fact that many 
of these are Ephesian names suggests that Phebe 
was starting out for Ephesus. Anyhow, the 
epistle which is called Ephesians was probably 
meant for all the churches of that neighborhood. 
It is a practical letter, reminding the readers of the 
love of God for them, and urging them to be 
worthy of it. It is addressed not only to fathers 
and mothers, but to children, whose chief duty, St. 
Paul says, is obedience. 

Thus went Tychicus, over the way from Rome 
to Ephesus and Colosse, bearing these three 
letters. 

307 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 

A fourth letter of the Roman imprisonment was 
written to the people of Philippi. One of their 
number, Epaphroditus, had come to Rome 
bringing gifts to St. Paul from the Philippian 
Christians. These first European converts had 
been very faithful and devoted to him. He writes 
to thank them for their thoughtfulness and affec- 
tion. Epaphroditus has been ill in Rome, and is 
thus returning to Philippi sooner than he had ex- 
pected. Paul is careful to inform the Philip- 
pians, that they may not suspect their messenger 
of having lost his courage. Paul hears that two 
women of the Philippian congregation have had a 
quarrel, and he urges them to make it up. Other- 
wise, the letter is full of praise and gratitude. The 
imprisonment is long, and the outcome of the trial 
is doubtful, but Paul is full of faith and joy. 

Four other letters have the name of St. Paul 
attached to them in our Bible; two to Timothy, 
one to Titus, one to the Hebrews. 

The two to Timothy and the one to Titus are 
called the Pastoral Epistles, because they are ad- 
dressed to Christian pastors. They are perhaps 
related to St. Paul as the First Gospel is related to 
St. Matthew, and the Fourth to St. John; that is, 
the heart of the letters is the word and spirit of 

308 



THE ROMAN IMPRISONMENT 

St. Paul, but other writers, in a different manner, 
and with a different idea of faith and works, and 
in a different situation, have made additions. Very- 
precious, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, is the 
record of what we may call the last words of Paul. 
"lam now ready to be offered, and the time of my 
departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, 
I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." 
The Epistle to the Hebrews was addressed by an 
unknown writer to Christians who were in the pain 
of persecution. So sorely were they made to 
suffer for their faith that there was danger lest 
they give it up. The epistle is written to encourage 
them. It shows how glorious is the religion which 
they have received; Christ is greater than Moses 
and higher than the angels, our high priest who 
prays for us in Heaven; not like the priests of the 
old religion, coming in orderly succession, offering 
their sacrifices and giving place to others, but 
called directly by God, like Melchizedek in Abra- 
ham's day, and abiding forever. The epistle re- 
cites the names of former heroes of the faith, and 
urges the reader to follow their example. 



300 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. JAMES AND ST. 
JUDE AND ST. PETER AND ST. JOHN 

1. The epistles of the brothers of Jesus. 

(1) James. Concerning the Temptation of 

the World. 

(2) Jude. Concerning the Temptations of the 

Flesh. 

2. The epistles of the apostles of Jesus. 

(1) Peter 

I. A Good Life the Best Reply to Perse- 

cution. 

II. The Promise of Christ's Coming. 

(2) John. 

I. A Good Life the Best Proof of Faith 

and Love. 

II. To a Lady; Concerning Hospitality. 

III. ToGaius; Concerning Hospitality. 

(XF the other epistles of the New Testament, two 
bear the names of brothers of Jesus, James 
and Jude; and five bear the names of apostles, 
Peter and John. 

The epistle of St. James is like the book of 
Proverbs. It is filled with various kinds of good 
advice. It is addressed to Christians who, are 
meeting temptation without much success. They 

310 



ST. PETER AND ST. JOHN 

are disposed to think more highly of rich Chris- 
tians than of poor ones. Some of them are them- 
selves rich, and have made their money by such 
injustice towards those who have worked for 
them, and are spending it in such waste and 
luxury, that they are warned that they shall be 
made to weep and howl for the miseries which 
shall come upon them. Some who pride them- 
selves on their faith think that they will be accept- 
able to God on that account, without regard to 
their lives. The writer has his opinions of all such, 
and expresses it with great plainness. 

The epistle of St. Jude is also concerned with 
unworthy Christians. There have already ap- 
peared among the faithful false and dangerous 
teachers, who are denying the truth of God and of 
Christ, and are persuading men that in order to be 
religious one does not need to be good. They are 
themselves living in sin, and are leading others 
into sin. The writer denounces them, classes 
them with the fallen angels and with the people 
of Sodom and Gomorrah, and promises that they 
also, and all who go with them, shall be destroyed 
with fire. 

These letters of James and Jude show that the 
Christians were in danger of falling into indif- 

311 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. JAMES, ST. JUDE 

ference and into immorality. They needed to be 
kept true to their ideals of right living. The first 
epistle of St. Peter reveals another danger, — the 
peril of persecution. As in the epistle to the He- 
brews, the Christians are urged to be brave and 
patient in the midst of unfair and cruel treatment, 
and to reply to it, not by attempting to protect 
themselves, but by living such good lives as shall 
make their enemies ashamed of their enmity. But 
the second epistle returns to the charges of un- 
christian conduct, quoting nearly the whole of 
Jude, and adding hard words about some who are 
teaching that Christ shall never come again. It is 
foolish, these teachers said, to expect a new 
heaven and a new earth; all things remain as 
they were from the foundation of the world. 
The false teachers appear also in the epistles of 
St. John. The first epistle emphasizes again and 
again the truth that the way to show one's love 
for God is to keep His commandments; he that 
doeth righteousness is righteous. Many false 
prophets are gone out into the world. There is a 
spirit of antichrist abroad, denying that Jesus is 
the Son of God. The second epistle warns a 
Christian lady against receiving false teachers 

into her house. Many deceivers are entered into 

313 



ST. PETER AND ST. JOHN 

the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is 
come in the flesh. The third epistle praises a man 
named Gaius for his hospitality towards visiting 
Christians, but condemns Diotrephes for refusing 
to receive them. The church in that place seems 
to be divided. 

Looking back, now, over the twenty-one epistles, 
we see that they are the record of two conflicts. 
One of these is a contention between two ways of 
thinking. The separation of the Christians from 
the Jewish church made immediately two opposed 
companies, the Christians and the Jews. We saw 
how the Jews at Jerusalem stoned the Christians, 
and how St. Paul was in like danger at their hands 
wherever he went; finally, when he returned to 
Jerusalem, they tried to kill him, and succeeded in 
putting an end to his ministry. But in addition 
to this difference between the Christians and the 
Jews, there was a difference within the Christian 
church between those on one side who, though 
they were Christians, liked the old ways and were 
very unwilling to depart from them, and those on 
the other side who felt that the old ways were a 
bondage out of which they had escaped into a 
glorious liberty. One side said, "Let us change 
little"; the other said, "Let us change much." 



313 



THE EPISTLES OF ST. JAMES, ST. JUDE 

Thus they contended as to the need of keeping the 
old law in the new church. One said, "Except ye 
be circumcized ye cannot be saved "; the other 
said, " Circumcision availeth nothing, nor uncir- 
cumcision, but a new creature. " It is this debate 
which appears in Galatians and in Romans. In 
spirit, it is the universal and everlasting discussion 
between the conservatives and the progressives, 
between the men of the old learning and the men 
of the new learning. 

There was also a contention between two ways 
of living. On one side was the teaching and 
example of Jesus, presenting the ideal life. He in- 
sisted on a goodness which required the obedience 
not only of the hands and lips but of the heart. He 
said that the love of God is shown not only by 
sacrifices and prayers and loyalty to the church, 
but by keeping His commandments; and that the 
love of our neighbor means that we shall love even 
our enemies. On the other side was human nature, 
and the temptations of the world, the flesh and the 
devil. Every epistle speaks of the bad behavior of 
some Christians. They had to be warned not to 
lie or steal. They had to be kept from quarrelling. 
They had to be urged to separate themselves from 
the sins of their pagan neighbors. As the years 

314 



ST. PETER AND ST. JOHN 

pass, and the epistles of James and Jude, and 
Peter and John appear, good men are almost in 
despair. Not only has the first enthusiasm given 
way to indifference, but indifference is falling into 
immorality. There are both false Christians and 
false teachers. This also is a universal and ever- 
lasting contention. The fact that the same 
struggle between good and evil is still going on, 
both about us and within us, helps us to read these 
old letters as if they were written today to us. 



315 



THE NEW TESTAMENT 
THE REVELATION 



THE REVELATION 

1. The seven churches, 1-3. 

2. The seven visions. 

(1) The sealed book, 4, 5. 

(2) The seven seals, 6, 7. 

(3) The seven trumpets, 8-11. 

(4) The seven mystical figures, 12-14. 

(5) The seven golden bowls, 15, 16. 

(6) The destruction of Rome, 17-20. 

(7) The foundation of New Jerusalem, 21, 22. 

ALL along the way which this last book brings 
to an end, the Bible people have been in con- 
tention with the great powers of the world. It has 
been like the story of a hero whose road of adven- 
ture takes him through the country of the giants. 
First, the Egyptian giant seized the people and 
made them slaves. They escaped at last, and 
settled in Palestine, after hard fighting with the 
people of the land and with their neighbors round 
about, and became a strong nation, which mis- 
government divided into two kingdoms. The 
Assyrian giant attacked one of the kingdoms, and 
carried the people captive to Nineveh. The 

319 



THE REVELATION 

Chaldean giant attacked the other kingdom, and 
carried the people captive to Babylon. The Per- 
sian giant conquered the Chaldean, and permitted 
the people to return to Palestine. But the Greek 
giant conquered the Persian and brought upon the 
people the persecution which appears in the book 
of Daniel. Finally, the Roman giant conquered 
the Greek. The people who had been divided into 
two kingdoms were now divided into two churches. 
The Roman giant attacked the Jewish church, and 
in the year 70 accomplished that destruction of 
Jerusalem which is predicted in the gospels. The 
beginning of the attack of the Roman giant upon 
the Christian church appears in the book of 
Revelation. 

In the Acts the Romans are almost always 
friendly to the Christians. The Jews rise up in 
mobs against the Christian preachers, but the 
Romans protect them. The Jews bring the 
Christians before the courts but the Roman 
judges acquit them. In the year 64, however, 
came an event which changed all this. That was 
the year of the great fire in Rome. It burned and 
burned, till the whole city was threatened with 
destruction. After the fire was over, people began 
to say that it had been set by Nero, the emperor. 

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THE REVELATION 

So many said it, and so loud and bitter were their 
voices, that the emperor looked about for some- 
body on whose shoulders he might put the blame. 
And he found the Christians. 

It is likely that Paul had been tried before this 
time, and condemned and beheaded; Peter was 
probably the leader of the Roman Christians. The 
Roman people knew little about them except that 
they never went either to the church or to the 
theatre. That is, they kept themselves apart 
from both the religion and the amusement of the 
city. And even the Jews hated them. The Chris- 
tians, then, having no friends, were convenient 
persons on whom to put the blame of burning 
Rome. Nero accused the Christians. They were 
scourged, they were thrown amongst savage lions 
in the Colosseum; they were daubed with pitch 
and fastened to stakes and set on fire in Nero's 
pleasure gardens, where now stands the great 
church of St. Peter. And the persecution, thus 
begun, continued for more than two hundred 
years. The fact that a person was a Christian 
made him liable at any time to arrest and punish- 
ment, as if he were a thief or a murderer. The 
whole power of the Roman Empire, the whole 
strength of the Roman giant, was exerted to 

321 



THE REVELATION 

crush out the religion of Christ. Finally, the 
Christian church conquered the Roman Empire. 
But that splendid story is in church history. Only 
the beginning of it is in the Revelation. 

The key to the meaning of the book of Revela- 
tion is hidden in the last verse of the thirteenth 
chapter. "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath 
understanding count the number of the beast; 
for it is the number of a man; and his number is 
six hundred three score and six." Now, in Hebrew 
the letters of the alphabet were used as numbers, 
and the name Neron Caesar written in Hebrew 
letters makes 666. The beast, then, of whom the 
writer had just been saying that as many as would 
not worship his image should be killed, was the 
Caesar Nero, the beginner of the persecution. 
According to the law of the Roman state all people 
were required to worship the image of the em- 
peror, under pain of death. This was the test 
which was applied to Christians. If they would 
worship the image they were set free; if they re- 
fused—as, being Christians, they must refuse— 
they were put to death. 

Thus the book is dated by this sentence. It be- 
longs to those early days of persecution. The pur- 



THE REVELATION 

pose of it is to encourage those who are suffering at 
the hands of the Romans, as the purpose of 
Daniel was to encourage those who were suffering 
at the hands of the Greeks. Daniel describes 
Antiochus as a beast with a little horn, because he 
does not dare to write more plainly. Revelation 
describes Nero as a beast whose number is 666, for 
the same reason. The people for whom the book 
was written knew what was meant. 

Even with this key, much of the book is still a 
mystery to us, but it is clear at least that the trib- 
ulations which are described in it are those which 
are befalling the Christians, or which shall pres- 
ently, for their cruelty, befall the Romans. The 
Christian martyrs are seen before the throne of 
God, crying, "How long, Lord, holy and true, 
dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them 
that dwell on the earth?" 

The writer declares that Rome — which he calls 
Babylon, because he does not dare to speak the 
name aloud — shall be utterly and terribly de- 
stroyed. "I saw another angel come down from 
Heaven, having great power, and the earth was 
lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily 
with a strong voice saying, 'Babylon the great is 

323 



/ 



THE REVELATION 

fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of 
devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage 
of every unclean and hateful bird/ " 

And Jerusalem — by which he means the Chris- 
tian church — shall become the joy and crown of 
the whole earth. "I saw the holy city, New Jeru- 
salem, coming down from God out of Heaven, pre- 
pared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I 
heard a great voice out of Heaven saying, ' Behold 
the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and 
God himself shall be with them and be their God. 
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; 
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, 
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; 
for the former things are passed away/ " 

The Bible ends with this great promise. In- 
tended to encourage those who were being per- 
secuted by the Romans, it has been a source of 
strength and consolation ever since. Out of all 
tribulation, into all joy, shall the Lord bring those 
who put their trust in Him. At last shall be estab- 
lished over all the earth that divine kingdom of 
righteousness and peace and blessing for which, all 
the prophets and apostles worked and waited. He 

324 



THE REVELATION 



whose first coming is described in the gospels shall 
come again to judge the world. "Even so come, 
Lord Jesus," says the writer of the Revelation. 
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you 
all. Amen." 



325 



Ut,U It- 



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